Maybe you should learn something
The article argues that learning new skills, especially technical ones, is intrinsically valuable and should not be dismissed as a waste of time even if they are not immediately useful or marketable. The author encourages readers to pursue learning for personal growth and curiosity, rather than only for productivity or career advancement.
Background
- Marginalia is an independent search engine built by a solo developer (Viktor Lofgren) as an alternative to mainstream, ad-driven, algorithm-heavy search like Google or Bing. It intentionally indexes smaller, non-commercial, personal websites — what some call the "indie web."
- The blog post argues that learning to build and run your own tools (like a search engine, a static site, or a self-hosted service) is valuable in itself, even if your results are "worse" than Big Tech's offerings. It pushes back against the idea that if you can't beat Google, you shouldn't try.
- The author's broader project — Marginalia Search — is itself a concrete example: it's a functional search engine built by one person, rejecting AI summarization, surveillance capitalism, and bloated web design. It surfaces content that mainstream search engines bury.
- This post is part of a recurring theme in tech/coding culture: the tension between "just use an existing solution" (efficiency, convenience) and "build/understand your own" (autonomy, learning, resilience). The author comes down firmly on the latter side.