Let me preface everything I write here with one thing, you're currently on a personal site. The very act of creating a personal site is an act of egotism. Egotism is defined by Oxford Languages as "the practice of talking and thinking about oneself excessively because of an undue sense of self-importance." Personal sites are solely dedicated to one's self and their interests, it's hard to argue that they are not the product of egotism.

Egotism, itself, however, is only viewed negatively because of the preconceived notion we hold of it. I'd argue that a large part of what makes personal sites so interesting is that they were crafted by people so engrossed in themselves, and by extension, their interests. People don't dedicate hours to making elaborate shrines on their sites as a service to others, they do it because they enjoy the subject it's dedicated to. Blogs don't exist because people feel as thought they're providing some service to the community by sharing their ramblings, they just want to write about themselves and what they think.

There wouldn't be a single non commercial site on the internet not run by a major figure if people weren't at least a little egotistical. It's because of this, that I feel as thought the concept of egotism being bad, at least in this case, is rather antiquated. Some of the most interesting takes I've read are the product of people so obsessed with their opinions that they felt the need to write full-length articles on them.

Egotism, in my eyes, is the foundation of the majority of creative works. It's not as though authors or artists magically start as important people, it's a necesity for them to have an unjust sense of self-importance to even present their works or contact a publisher. Personal sites are obviously a far more literal example of this, but I feel as though the point remains. A personal site not based on egotism would be the personal equivalent of Dictionary.com

This is not a criticism of personal sites, nor is it a criticism of egotism, rather, it's a criticism of the modern perspective of egotism. Egotism, despite the numerous poor traits it's associated with, can be the result of rather interesting things when used creatively. Personal sites could be considered an example of just that, and that's exactly why I enjoy looking through them so much, they serve as a window into how another person thinks.

Personal sites are effectively the most self-indulgent thing you can create on the internet. There isn't a single piece of logic behind making one that doesn't involve what the creator wants, or how they feel. It's all about an individual, and in some cases (i'll ignore the others), that leads to rather interesting sites. Those interesting sites made by interesting people are what justify the egotistical nature of the Indie Web, among any other things.

tl;dr: being an asshole is cool and awesome when it's under the pretense of web-development (gregory house photo related). TM out.