The Case for Minimal, Decentralized Blogging
Why We Blog
Blogging has always been a deeply personal act. Whether it's to share thoughts, document findings, or create a trail of our own learning, the blog is often more of a public notebook than a social platform. Unlike social media, it's not built for likes, comments, or virality. It's built to express and to remember.
Many of us blog to share ideas and findings or document solutions we've found. There's value in having your own space to think aloud and return to later without overwhelming interactions, like when sharing things on social media.
Several platforms, like Medium or Substack, attempt to bridge the gap between blogging and social media. However, a quick tour through these sites often reveals repetitive content, articles rewritten for clicks, likes, or algorithmic favor, with little originality or depth. In contrast, many of us occasionally stumble upon meaningful insights tucked away on older (or simply minimalist) blogs and websites, often far removed from any social platform. These hidden gems capture the original spirit of the internet: sharing knowledge for its own sake, not for validation or social approval.
Why Decentralization Makes Sense
Decentralization aligns naturally with this spirit. A blog doesn't need to live on a server that might go down, a platform that might disappear, or a domain you might forget to renew. With decentralized technologies like IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), your blog can exist anywhere (and everywhere) without relying on a single point of failure. Anyone, anywhere, can access your words as long as they have the content hash or gateway link. No domain name is necessary, no hosting bill, just pure access.
Plain HTML for Pure Writing
One of the most underrated blogging formats is plain HTML. Pure HTML enhances readability, load speed, and portability. It's timeless, and there are no JavaScript frameworks to break or plugins to update. It works the same today as it did a decade ago. It's easy to write and store, has a low footprint, and is perfect for publishing in a decentralized context. More importantly, it lets your content shine. It's just you and the text.
Many static site generators are designed to convert Markdown into HTML to build websites. They're great for various use cases, but installing and configuring a tool can feel like overkill for simple blogging. In many cases, it's easier to write directly in HTML. The learning curve is minimal: you only need to know a handful of basic tags like p, h1–h6, img, figure, and a. CSS controls the visual presentation, and thanks to the rise of large language models, vibe-coding custom CSS to give your blog a unique visual identity is now within reach for anyone, regardless of design or coding experience.
IPFS: Hosting Without Hosting
The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a decentralized protocol designed to make the web more distributed and resilient. Instead of locating files by a server or IP address, IPFS retrieves content based on its unique content hash, ensuring that the exact version of a file is always accessible as long as it's hosted by at least one node in the network.
This approach makes it an ideal foundation for decentralized blogging, where content should be portable, tamper-proof, and independent of traditional hosting. Building on IPFS, IPFN (InterPlanetary File Network) is an initiative focused on organizing and indexing content within the IPFS ecosystem. It offers a structured, accessible way to publish blogs, documentation, and knowledge in a truly decentralized manner, bridging raw IPFS storage with meaningful navigation.
With IPFS, your blog isn't tied to a specific server. Instead, it's stored across a network of nodes. Each file has a unique content identifier (CID), and anyone with that CID can access the exact same version of the content forever. IPFN technology means there is no database, hosting provider, or backend to manage; it is just static files pinned to IPFS.
Making It Easy with Fleek
Fleek is a service that makes IPFS-based site deployment feel like deploying to Netlify or Vercel. You connect a GitHub repo, and it automatically builds and publishes your site to IPFS. You can also use the SDK to deploy local websites without a GitHub repository.
You get a persistent IPFS hash and, optionally, a domain likes name.on.fleek.co (or you can link your own). It handles updates, SSL, and even IPFS pinning in the background, so you don't have to. It's a perfect balance between complete decentralization and modern user experience.
In Conclusion
Blogging doesn't need to be complicated or expensive. It doesn't require servers, CMS platforms, or domain names. At its simplest, a blog can be a folder of HTML files stored on a decentralized network like IPFS, accessible to anyone, anywhere, and owned by no one but you.
What makes this model powerful is the concept of true content ownership. When a file is added to IPFS, it's identified by its content hash, not a location. Once multiple nodes across the network pin that file, it becomes effectively permanent, and no central authority can take it down. You may no longer control every copy, but that's the point: your content is now part of a distributed web, resistant to deletion, censorship, or gatekeeping. It belongs to the network, yet it originated from you (attributed by name or anonymous using, for example, a PGP key to sign the work), and its integrity is verifiable forever.
By combining this resilience with the simplicity of static HTML, decentralized blogging offers a future that stays true to the web's original ethos: open, personal, and free from intermediaries.