Introducing Webdevladder

Webdevladder is a YouTube channel and blog about the technical topics that interest me as I make open source software. I've been a professional web developer since 2011, and since 2019 I've been working in public full-time, publishing most of my code to GitHub as I write it. Webdevladder is a public alias that feels comfortably decoupled from my personal life (being on GitHub since 2012 with my real name is weird in some respects, the professional environment strongnudged me to do it; in 2024 I created this alias and site to gain some distance).

The open web is humanity's shared, decentralized platform. I love it for its wide reach and gatekeeper optionality. For all its flaws, the web allows us to reach more people with less friction than any other platform. My goal is to work on open source web software that I find meaningful. I've been lucky to have the resources to work independently for the past 6+ years as I pursue a career in open source, and over the next few years I hope to continue making software that people value enough to sustain its development.

With Webdevladder, I'm producing videos and blog posts about the technology I use in my work, with an emphasis on Svelte and TypeScript. My projects span the whole stack, from a CSS framework to a Svelte UI library to a fullstack dev-and-end-user tool. I also make websites that use the stack and tools to streamline the process. The fullstack tool is Zzz, and it's my focus for funding because its target audience is both nontechnical and dev users, and it's the main thing my other software has been designed for.

My stated goal here is to deepen my knowledge of web technology and improve my communication skills through blogging and videos, and an ulterior motive is to market my work for sustainability and egoic self interest. You're reading the blog now, and I'm producing educational videos on my main channel, and less polished content like raw programming sessions and demos of my apps on a second channel.

But before you subscribe to the feed, here's some more context.

What Webdevladder is not

I'm seeking to be an independent open source developer funded directly by my users, which is an uncommon situation in 2024. I hope that the few user-funded developers of today will be joined by many more in the future, and I want to be among them. I like the idea of having many smaller supporters versus one or a few large ones, permitting me more freedom from unhelpful influence. I don't need huge resources to sustain my work, and I may do some marginal hustling like selling merch. Thinking wishfully I'd like to hire a small team or be sponsored by a company while keeping independence on my open source projects.

I share some similarities with a few contemporary archetypes, but there are important differences. The main point is that I'm devoting my time primarily to making software. All of the other stuff, like this blog, is supplementary.

For one, I'm not a startup. I will never take investor funding for these projects or sell control over the core repos Zzz, Fuz, Moss, Gro, etc - excluding any products I build using the stack. I'm trying to make the social contract transparent and respectful for any community that forms. My goal is to make the best software I can, and profit-mindedness is counterproductive. I believe profit-incentivized companies can make geat software, but not the best of the kind I want in the long-term. I prefer to keep organizational profitability out of the equation for pure software projects that operate no services (a neat productivity trick: keep your FOSS dev unburdened by IRL service operations) If parts of my stack are successful, they'll be owned by a nonprofit or equivalent.

I'm also not an entertainer, influencer, or video content creator. Making software, not videos, will remain my priority. Being funded through YouTube ad revenue or sponsorships would misalign my incentives, taking my focus away from building software. My current stance is that I won't do any software-related sponsorships, which means the dev opinions you get from me are entirely rooted in either my preferences or professional experience. I'm open to sponsorship in the form of a job where I can work on Zzz and its dependencies at least part-time (if I'm going to shill, I'll shill one company at a time, and I'll really mean it, mostly), and I may use the content creator playbook, minus dev-related sponsorships, to build a financially supportive audience.

And finally, I'm not a comprehensive educator. I won't retread the same beginner content that's excellently covered elsewhere, and I won't sell courses or do any time-consuming content creation for media companies. While Webdevladder is educational content, it's tailored to what I find interesting and generally more advanced and less accessible. I don't run a Discord community and I'm focused on my projects, but I would like, so to speak, to prop up a ladder that anyone could climb.

My plan

I'm lucky to have the resources to pursue my projects for a few more years, and regardless of my personal situation I plan to continue working on this software and monetize it without possibly-enshittifying patterns. It's all permissively licensed so anyone can create commercial projects using it, and I may do this for a company to sustain development, but I'm a stickler for boundaries when it comes to what goes into the repos.

@webdevladder is a channel where I get to learn the ropes of video communication in a low pressure environment. My other channel @webdevladder_vods gives me even lower pressure experience making videos related to my software and practices, including unfiltered programming sessions for those interested in learning that particular way.

For more about me, see my personal website.

If any of this sounds interesting, there's all kinds of links and buttons to click. See you next time.

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