In 2025, what does your little corner of the Internet look like?
Then comes the time when you're asked that question: “And where do people find you?” – or – “Where are you?”.
They want to know where you are on the Internet; what your online presence is (what it looks like, where it is).
In the title of this text, I preferred to talk about “little corner on the Internet” because the expression “online presence” has been accommodated (and massified) in the discourse of digital marketing coaches as something very specific (that thing that, they say, you need to have in order to achieve success and money). I therefore preferred to introduce the subject using the expression “your little corner of the Internet” to emphasize that I will be approaching the subject here from another perspective – privileging notions of security, comfort, ethics, privacy and tranquility (which, of course, in an online context, do not have to be incompatible with notions of personal fulfillment and/or professional success).
In the early 2000s, when people asked you what your “address” was on the Internet, they wanted to know the address (URL) of your personal and/or professional website. When commercial social networks appeared, they sold the idea that it would be more interesting and advantageous (even cheaper) to have an account there, in the walled garden of each of them, rather than a website of your own. Twenty years on, it's clear to everyone what a trap that “offer” was.
So that, today, when they hear the question “And where do people find you?”, most people simply give a username on one of the commercial social networks (or more than one of them). But in 2025, when it has been widely reported for years how commercial social networks behave, how interesting is this? I mean, a) are people satisfied with the overall quality of service that commercial networks offer?; and b) who today wants to have their image, personal or professional, directly associated with companies that do those things? a) I haven't seen or heard reports of satisfaction – on the contrary, we see reports of burnout, depression and compulsive behavior; b) it's hard to imagine that anyone would want that, at a time when caring about one's personal/professional image has become so important. And yet, the vast majority of people continue to cultivate an online presence on commercial social networks simply because they are unaware of the alternatives that exist to them, which are many, diverse and much better.
What is online presence?
Online presence is the way you can exist on the Internet – and thus be able to present information about yourself there, express yourself, be found or simply contacted – and take part in conversations with other people. So it's essential – if you want to publicly present information about yourself, as well as have and inform a communication channel. We can consider an e-mail address to be a minimal form of online presence: it allows you to communicate with other people, but without providing public information about yourself. This may be enough for some people. In addition to having an e-mail address (nowadays something that is necessary even to contract important or essential services), having some other form of online presence will then be related to who you are and what your interests and goals are.
In order to move forward in the reflection and paths of your choice process, let's ask an important question:
What do you want an online presence for?
Yes, because depending on your desires and interests, you will choose the type of online presence that seems most appropriate and satisfying. So let's consider the following four possibilities:
1. Socializing online (ethically and safely) You want to have an online presence in order to stay in touch with your nearest and dearest (friends, essentially – including some family members, probably). By “stay in touch” we mean: having access to the things that people have chosen to share with you (only) and also with other people; making your own posts to your friends; exchanging messages; chatting in groups. For this kind of experience, in 2025, the best option, I think, is to have an account on a non-commercial social network. This way, you'll enjoy the following advantages, among others:
- You won't miss any of your friends' posts. The timeline of these networks shows you all your friends' posts – and in the order in which they were posted.
- You won't see advertisements in your timeline (or in any other section of your social network). That's right: you won't see posts from influencers/salespeople, advertisements for banks, cars, insurance etc., posts from scammers or any “boosted” (paid) posts.
- You won't receive direct messages (DMs) from people you haven't given permission to send direct messages to you (i.e. no spam or harassment).
- You won't have a timeline built with strategies to hijack your attention, get you hooked and keep you stuck there, watching advertisements (so you'll find it easy to stop using the social network and do other interesting things throughout your day).
- Your social network will not track your activity on the Internet; and it will not collect, infer, classify, transfer or sell your personal data and information.
- You will also be able to be in contact with people who use other social networks (including those in the fediverse), not just the one you use.
- And you can even – if you have sufficient interest and technical knowledge – independently manage one of the various sites that make up your social network (using it to host only your account or also the accounts of some of your friends).
How does the above set of possibilities compare with the experience you currently have on commercial social networks? These possibilities, specifically, and many others, are available on the Hubzilla social network.
The social network will generally work in the way we have just described because it is a non-commercial social network, and therefore does not need or want to work like commercial social networks. Note that a social network that works in the above way will provide you with a pleasant, peaceful, non-toxic and non-addictive experience – therefore, it won't negatively affect your mental health (on the contrary, it will benefit your mental health, as it will enable you to cultivate your social relationships online in a healthy way). Do your friends not yet use a non-commercial social network? Then you can forward this text to them, invite them to open an account and join you. (See here for other ways to invite/bring your friends to your non-commercial social network).
Note: If you currently still need to use a commercial social network, remember that using a non-commercial social network is the way to enjoy a healthy online sociability experience, free from the limitations and constraints imposed by commercial networks.
2. Publishing texts You want to have an online presence in order to publish longer, more reflective texts on a specific subject or various subjects. For this purpose, let's consider two options:
a) The blog. Blogs were a great success – as we've already seen – before the emergence of commercial social networks. They only lost visibility because commercial networks presented themselves as superior to them, but they never really were, because blogs and social networks are different tools (and, moreover, commercial social networks would degrade, with the “enshittification” they carried out). The commercial networks, as in other cases, tried to disqualify blogs by also selling the mirage of the “reach” (and greater interaction) of posts to more people. In the end, this wasn't even confirmed, due to the constant changes in the timeline algorithm – which doesn't even guarantee that your post will be seen by your contacts. For the texts you want to publish, how important are quantitative factors related to reach and interaction to you? Who do you want to write for? How do you plan to inform your audience about the existence of your blog? Depending on how you answer these questions, blogging will be a great choice. I recommend WriteFreely (it's what we use here at Ink on Paper). It's free and open source software, offers decentralization and federation (your posts can be followed by accounts on non-commercial social networks that use the ActivityPub communication protocol). You can create a WriteFreely instance/site, either for yourself or for several people who want to have their own blogs, or you can open an account on one of the instances open to public sign-ups. WriteFreely offers RSS feeds and also the possibility of receiving micropayments from your readers.
b) The non-commercial social network Hubzilla is also what is often called a “macro blog”. This means that its posts can be long-form, so it can also be used as a blog, but with all the features of a social network, such as comments on texts/posts and many other features. Read our introduction to the Hubzilla network.
3. secure e-mail You want to have a secure email to use as your only form of online presence or in association with one of the other three forms we've described here. For this purpose, we recommend the secure email (and also calendar) Tuta. Based in Germany, Tuta is a free and open source software, has free and paid plans – and in all of them offers automatic end-to-end encryption between Tuta users (and also on messages sent to users of other emails, using a password shared in advance with the recipients). These features make Tuta more transparent and secure than the famous emails you know. (Check out Tuta's comparison between Gmail and Tuta).
4. Creativity, customization and control You want to have an online presence to publish all kinds of media, but with total control over the design, structure and navigation of your online space. In this case, you need to build your own personal website. To do this, you need to learn HTML to build web pages. It's easy and fun to make a simple web page! Then, if you want to have more control over the look of your site, you can learn CSS. To put your pages on the Internet, you need to hire a webhosting service (do a search for “webhosting” to find a service that suits you). Then you need to create and buy your own Internet address (URL), with your name on it. To get you going, take a look at this list of 100 things you can do on your personal website! And check it out: the Hubzilla social network also allows you to easily create pages and websites (just install its native Webpages app). Here, too, it's still important to learn HTML, even the basics.
///////////////////////////
Note: The software mentioned (and recommended) here – Hubzilla, WriteFreely and Tuta – are free software.
[November, 2024] Updated: January 20, 2025