Small Universes, a Freer Web

I've always been fascinated by the idea of small, independent universes. Places that work on their own, but when you look at them together, they start to form entire ecosystems.

A great example is the omg.lol community, run by Adam Newbold. It's fantastic and, as far as I know, almost entirely built by him. More than creating a few services, Adam ended up building a small ecosystem.

That got me thinking about a question that sounds a little silly, but is actually pretty interesting:

What is the minimum you really need to use a computer?

Maybe a text editor. Something for basic page layout. A calculator. A place to keep notes. And, of course, some way to communicate with other people.

That was the starting point for my own little universe of independent services. They don't necessarily need to talk to each other. The idea is for them to be simple, open, free, and, whenever possible, able to work offline.

As I write this, I'm releasing the third one, after a few months of work.

But before that came Bimbooo, at bimb.ooo.

Bimbooo started as a service for sharing text and notes, but it became a little more fun than that. Besides publishing text, you can host small websites there. Just drop in your HTML and CSS, and everything is built on the spot.

It's simple on purpose.

The service is free, and I intend to keep it that way. There are no trackers and no analytics watching what you do.

Of course, all of these services have to run somewhere.

And no, this is not the part where I ask you to help pay for the VPS. Hehe.

There is, however, a donation request, but for something completely different: buying adult diapers for elderly residents of a nursing home in Brazil.

The servers, infrastructure, and other resources used by Bimbooo and the other projects are fully paid for by me.

Then came Tuno Notes, at tuno.place.

It may be less essential, but I like it precisely because it's so simple. It's a place to write, save, and download quick notes. Everything is stored in your own browser.

We don't receive your notes, we don't have access to what you're writing, and honestly, that's exactly how I wanted it to work.

And today, exactly today, I'm releasing Pupu's Page, at pupu.page.

Pupu's Page is a free online editor made to feel comfortable to use, without that annoying feeling that you're fighting the tool while trying to write something.

We're still working a lot on accessibility and on refining the details. Right now, there are four of us on the team, including me.

And it doesn't end here.

There are more services that have been in development for months. Some are useful, some will probably be strange, small, or simply fun.

None of them were created with the goal of becoming a business, raising investment, or finding some miraculous monetization model.

The idea is much less ambitious.

Build simple things.

Keep them open.

Keep them free.

And, in some small way, help the internet remain a place where someone can create something simply because they thought it would be nice for it to exist.

That's it for now.