I had a different sort of rant at this URL, one that named names, but I have decided to replace it. There was something else I wanted to say here, instead. A general principle I wanted to express, instead of attacking specific individuals. No doubt some people on Hacker News will object. They might even call me childish again. Never mind that they were proving me right about not wanting traffic from HN or Y Combinator, because Jamie Zawinski is still right about these assholes.
Well, that is their right. They can think and say whatever they want, and be damned to them. However, it is my right — my prerogative — to summarily dismiss their objections should somebody be foolish enough to bring them to my attention.
Likewise, it is my prerogative to reject visitors by referrer if the referring site’s operator is not only foolish enough to provide that information but negligent enough to let their site become a Nazi bar. It would even be my prerogative to replace this static website with a Ghost installation and erect a paywall.
Why? I can explain it in four simple words. My website, my rules. I operate this website at my own expense. It is not a side hustle, and you are not a paying customer. I, therefore, owe you nothing.
You certainly don’t get to call me childish because you don’t like the way I operate my website. Who do you think you are? I would not tolerate such presumption if you were a guest in my house. Do you think I’d forgive such effrontery because you came to my website instead?
If so, you think entirely too much of yourself for somebody who isn’t even a paying customer. If you were a paid subscriber then for your arrogance I’d tell you to take your business elsewhere.
If I dared tell you how to run your website, you might very well tell me to go fuck myself. You would be fully within your rights to do so. But you dare begrudge me that same right? How do you rationalize this? It certainly isn’t rational.
To be fair, you don’t owe me your time and attention either. You are not obligated to put up with the manner in which I run my little website. You are welcome to go visit somebody else’s website instead, and see how kindly they respond to your petulance.
Does this offend you? Too bad. You should have remembered that when you stray from walled gardens like Hacker News into the personal Web you do so at your own risk. The whole point of a personal website is personal sovereignty.