A concise praise of small tech
Most services we use these days are dominated by “Big Tech”. Email, blogging, etc..
There is a good reason for this. They happen to be very convenient to use, very user-friendly, and frequently free!
I’ve grown an appreciation, however, for “Small Tech”. Maybe you’re unfamiliar with this phrase. I’m not entirely sure this is an appropriate label either.
There’s something to be said about services run by small groups or individuals with low prices. It’s like going to the tech farmers market and buying artisanal email and web hosting.
Email Service
For the past few months I’ve been using Purelymail for email. A no-nonsense email provider run by a single person that costs $10 per year to bring your domains.
I had an issue setting up a subdomain for an email address I was porting over. I emailed about it and got a response the next day where he discovered a reason for it not working and saying he’d go ahead and add it in manually for me so it’d work. This kind of service you can’t get for $10 a year from Big Tech.
Blog
Here I am posting on BearBlog.dev which I found via Hacker News. If I keep using this platform then the one time fee is almost a must in my mind. Domain names, support. Small teams, small fees with good support. This is what small tech is about in my opinion.
Caveats
The one caveat I can think of is obviously the fact that the teams are small meaning there is the “hit by a bus” factor which is an obvious concern. For me…I understand if people only care about having a robust company behind the service. But I enjoy supporting small initiatives that have been passionately taken care of by small teams.
Others
This is a relatively new area for me to discover. Are there any other big tech services we can replace?