There’s been a little chatter circling the question “Why would I build a website in 2025?” I was on a panel about it in the last year and it has popped up on various podcasts and such. It’s a fair question, but it’s one that, I think, requires both a very wide lens into what people are doing, and a very narrow lens into a specific situation in order to answer.
It’s easy to say “new restaurants do really well just having an Instagram alone” then conclude the web is doomed. But that’s the narrow look. Maybe just-Instagram really does work for that one restaurant in one place at this exact time. Or you could say “the web is for apps and e-commerce” (because other holotypes are better suited by native apps, allegedly) which is a very wide look without using a narrow lens to look at any one particular situation.
Money is the unavoidable topic. Many people become web designers and developers because of the potentially strong career path. And then work for companies using the web for, naturally, making money. I don’t think any of that is in any particular risk. It’s also not a requirement for the web to exist and thrive. You can (and likely will) make websites that don’t make any money and you won’t be paid to build them. I, for one, think that’s awesome. Not everything has to be a hustle.
So in that spirit, over the last month or so, I jotted down little ideas I randomly saw or thought of why a website exists. Why would anybody build a website in 2025? Here’s some reasons.
- You’re just getting into birding and you want a site to publish cool birds you’ve seen.
- You’re running a charity event and you made a “Facebook Event” at first to spread the word, but a bunch of people told you they don’t have Facebook (on purpose) so they can’t RSVP or ask questions, and aren’t sure if they are seeing the complete information. So you make a website for the event that everyone can see.
- There is a wildfire nearby your house and you’re getting inundated with text messages and phone calls from your friends and family wanting to know what’s going on, so you make a quick blog and post daily updates to help keep people updated.
- You’re thinking of moving to a new city and want to convince your partner that it’s a good idea. So you build a website with a bunch of photos and captions showcasing all the good reasons to do it (and a few of the reasons against it, to be fair).
- You read a lot of books and want to keep a log of them, especially the very interesting and recommendable ones. This is both to help you remember and to share with the world (but mostly your friends).
- You bought a book about programming mazes and you’ve used this new knowledge to build some interesting programmatic mazes and you make a little website to show them off. Which doubles as a nice little website for your young one to play with, which they think is cool that you made it for them.
- You own the world’s largest mustard museum and you want to make sure to have a website so that people search for it find your website and it’s got all the important information on it like where it is, when it’s open, and what it has to offer.
- Your company archives and makes available the history of the entire internet.
- You offer your customers a simple bookmarkable URL that says what the soup of the day is at your corner cafe.
- You need to provide an API that does something cool and useful. APIs and URLs and URLs are websites.
- You’re very sick of the current year so for a little catharsis you make a website that counts the remaining seconds until this year is over.
- You know that everybody has different social networks they have and prefer. You tend to be pretty active on a variety of them, more than most, anyway. You make a simple personal website that has prominent links to all the other social sites you are active on, so people know where you’re at and can choose the ones that match for them.
- You’re getting married and you want to have website that all your guests can reference that includes information about the wedding, the RSVP forms, the gift registries, photo galleries, and all that.
- You’re trying to document every genre of music ever with examples.
- You just want a basic personal blog, like this one, because you just wanna write about whatever the heck you want to and redesign it once and a while and you just like it. Plus it’s got a timeline to help you remember when things happened in your life.
- You work at a historical society that helps people connect to the past of a geographical region by documenting and sharing stories of the past.
- You’re trying to eat all the breakfast burritos in town so you know which ones are the best.
- You’re already a famous actor but you just need a little website still to share your doodles and stuff.
- You plan to walk across Japan and write about it and then turn it into a book and a website can be the home base for all that.
- You made up a cool new party game and you want to make a website for it so you can share with people how to play and the rules and stuff.
- You have basic morals that you follow, and your journalism job fired you because of them, so you start your own website and do your own journalism there where nobody can take it away from you because the wind blew the other way one day.
- You think that web technologies can be the tools of an artist like oil paints and canvas can be. You make websites like a painter paints.
- Your city doesn’t have a very good place to see all upcoming social activities, so you take it upon yourself to build one, combining scrapers, your own hunting, and submissions.
- You need a website for your band, duh.
- Your starting out as a magician and a website is an excellent place to show the world who you are and what you do and maybe get in touch with you if you want. And tell them that, ya know, you do birthday parties and stuff sometimes.
- You want to build the next hugely successful app, and you look around and realize all hugely successful apps have strong web apps so you should probably do that. You’re going to want URLs, after all.
- You’ve got what you are pretty sure is the world’s best chocolate chip cookie recipe and it really needs a web site all to itself.
- You need a website for your other band, duh.
- You want to tell a story about a massive avalanche that occurred in the Pacific Northwest. How it happened, who was involved, everything with great detail. The multimedia environment of the web is perfect. Words! Photos! Video! Interactive diagrams! Links! Scrolling effects! Hard to beat.
- You’ve always wanted to make your own video game and the web has everything you need to do that, including massive reach.
- You want to build a private little chat app just for your family that won’t change unless you change it.
- You make typefaces for a living and you need a place to show them to people and for people to buy them.
- You just like making websites.
- Because you got an idea in your head and just had to do it.
- Your kid is having a birthday party and you want to send people a URL that has all the information on it that nobody will have any trouble accessing.
- You need to document all the smashburgers in town.
- Because you’re starting a podcast and podcasts are RSS feeds and RSS feeds need a URL and URLs are websites.
- Because you need somewhere to post a video because YouTube keeps marking the video you’re trying to put there as a copyright violation even though it isn’t and you just can’t figure out any recourse.
- The brewery you work at just started serving cocktails this fall. Obviously you already have a website so this means just updating it with a nice banner letting your existing customers know.
- You just think about email a lot and want to write it down.
- You’ve just written a book and you need one place to send people to about it.
- You work for the government of your city and there is a desire to make all the data the city collects available to the public. A website is the obvious output.
- You’re trying to get a job so having a resume on a personal website seems like a good idea.
- You’re trying to get a job, but instead of just making a typical resume and portfolio, you make a website where the entire purpose is about why you would be a good fit for one particular role at one particular company. You use the entire website to explain why. Moonshot.
- You want an entirely secret place on the internet for you and your buds so you make a website with tight security that only y’all know how to get into.
- You need a bucket to put all your favorite GIFs.
- You’re running for office and need a URL to put on your signs.
- You’re really like cultivating online communities. There is a new big MMORPG coming out and you make a forums website to bring all the interested people together to talk about out, outside the influence of the company making the game itself.
- You are into making custom cross-stitch designs, so you build a little tool to help you design and plan them. You put just enough features in to make it useful without being a distraction. Ya know, a home-cooked app.
- You just finished a course on Frontend Masters and want to try out some stuff you’ve learned.
