As you know, free is rarely free. Especially online.
We’ve been directed to celebrate convenience. Sign up, log in, and start building on whatever shiny platform makes things look easy. I get it. Ease is tempting! When you’re a small business owner, a maker, or just trying to get your work out there, free and simple feels like a gift.
Over time, I started to realize that what looks like a gift is often a trade.
A free Instagram account. A free newsletter tool. A free website builder. A free audience. The promise of it all is intoxicating, like a door opening into something boundless. (Ayyy, no limits!)
Someone is paying for it, though, and usually, that someone is you. Not generally in dollars, but definitely in attention, data, and creative sovereignty.
I say that as someone who has been inside those systems for years. I used them because everyone else did, because they worked to an extent, and because they were convenient.
But at some point, I started to see how much of my energy and my clients’ energy was being siphoned away. Into ads. Into algorithms. Into the endless cycle of “growth” that never seems to end.
So I stopped being open to building on any platform, I use WordPress for most projects. The platform I started with, the one that lets me build my own way. It’s not the flashiest. It’s not the easiest.
But it is the one that has always given me real ownership of my work. I can move hosts, change designs, break things, rebuild them. My content is mine (there’s nothing in the fine print that says I am not the owner!!). I like that kind of freedom.
Because free, in the way it’s often sold to us, comes with a price tag we don’t see until later.
The Hidden Costs of “Free”
Attention extraction
Platforms are designed to keep you scrolling, refreshing, checking. You become both the consumer and the product. Your presence fuels their profit, even when it feels like you’re just “posting to share.”
Algorithmic dependence
You can have a thriving audience one day and lose it the next when the algorithm shifts. Your visibility, your connection to your people, becomes dependent on a system you can’t influence.
Data mining
Most free tools track every move you and your visitors make. It’s surveillance wrapped in convenience, and it’s built into the infrastructure of “free.”
Aesthetic sameness
When everyone uses the same templates, everything starts to look and feel the same. The unique edges get softened out. The web starts to resemble a glossy suburb instead of a wild garden.
The illusion of ease
What’s sold as simple often hides how little control you actually have. You trade flexibility for convenience, and one day, you realize you never really owned the thing you built.
Choosing a More Sovereign Web
You don’t have to quit social media or free tools completely. But you can start to think differently about where your digital energy lives.
Own your home on the web.
Even if you still use social media, make your website the anchor! Let it be the place that holds your work and your story. Everything else can point back there. This place is yours. Yours to curate and offer your gifts and welcome people in. (Get some ideas on how to do this in this post.)
Pay for what matters.
Sometimes paying is a form of care. Ethical hosting, privacy-respecting analytics, and tools that align with your values can help your website stay clean, independent, and truly yours.
Back up your creations.
Keep your own archive of what you make. Don’t let your best writing or projects live only on borrowed platforms.
Build your own rhythm.
An email list. A blog. A slow-growing audience that finds you through word of mouth or resonance instead of algorithms. These are things that last.
Remember that platforms are borrowed ground.
You can still plant seeds there, but don’t mistake them for your home. Keep your roots somewhere more stable.
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We live in a world that constantly tells us to scale, automate, and optimize. But there’s something deeply human about creating small, strong, living spaces online. Spaces that breathe and don’t need to shout.
Free isn’t always bad, it just isn’t always what it seems.
