I've been involved with the internet community for almost 20 years now, which makes me somewhat of an old-timer. Unfortunately, neither my studies nor my work have ever been related to the internet.
Although the first post on this blog is quite recent, this blog has been rebuilt countless times, and its domain has changed over and over again. After all, my thoughts were different when I was younger. Now that I'm older, I just need a place to speak my mind. I dare not post on social circles like WeChat Moments, Xiaohongshu (Red), or TikTok. There has to be an outlet somewhere.
Over the years, I've been running on passion, spending thousands, if not tens of thousands, on domain names and server costs annually. Website ads and sponsorship fees have barely covered less than half of those expenses.
Many friends have asked why I keep at it. What kind of obsession is this?
I remember back in elementary school, my family was of average means. I can't recall the exact grade, but a relative gave me an outdated IBM 486 laptop with Windows 3.2 installed. Back then, I couldn't afford to buy magazines, so I was keen on visiting the library every week to read "Popular Software" and "Computer Enthusiasts." I suppose that's when my fate was sealed.
My very first website dates back to either the fifth or sixth grade of elementary school. Back then, registration wasn't required. It was a DVBBS, a classic BBS source code based on ASP. I still remember the domain name, but I'll avoid mentioning it here to prevent any trouble. It was a .CN domain.
Through junior high and high school, I never stopped running websites, though they were just for my own amusement without much traffic. I also frequented various forums and accumulated some domain names, unable to resist purchasing discounted VPSs.
The first website I ever properly set up was a PHP-based site, which now has been running for almost 10 years and still has a few thousand active users.
Later on, I managed a image hosting service and a community forum. I won't go into details here.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother. It's clearly a losing business, but I just can't bear to shut it down. Work keeps me busy enough, sometimes only allowing me to maintain the site once or twice a month. But seeing that there are still so many friends around, I can't bear to let go.
Perhaps it's akin to the monologue in my heart when I created my first website as a child:
I just wanted, while staring at my boring textbooks, for there to be a few strangers reading the words written by yet another stranger.
It feels like silently influencing the world, adding a few more silent observers to the vast, soundless everything.
感谢你~
ZH_CN