Not having to learn Git to make a website, for one. Both my kids have a neocities website, github pages has an enormous barrier to entry compared to it.

Just google around, read some w3schools, type it into a textarea at neocities and woa, your own site.

Obviously this is only interesting for relatively nerdy types, but i don’t at all understand all the “why don’t people just <twenty cumbersome steps and tools>” comments that are here currently.

I know no place that makes having your own, self-built website, easier. And it’s free!

I'm not a user of neocities, but I know plenty of people who do use it..and they all use it for reasons having to do with principles as well as fun, and less so about technology. The people i know who use neocities might consider github and other similar offerings as the continued centralization of all the things, where neocities would be considered "the alternative". Of course, if enough users also populate neocities and github, then we have less decentralization, and more of a duopoly...but still the folks i know who use it, just think of neocities as the scrappy offering alternative to the "big powers" - so not just against github but also other big web hosting powerrs who behave more centralized. In addition, and beyond the principles aspect, they often like neocities because its a bit nostalgic back when the web was weird, quirky, and more fun - and not so bland and corporate-like as it often seems to be these days. Final note, the people - that i know - that are neocities users are actually quite tech-savvy enough to use github, so its not that they lack the competency to use github, its just that they *choose* not to.

Neocities is not about to lock out a segment of the users by requiring 2FA.

https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/securing-your-acco...

It's more of a platform than just a website dumping ground. You can tag your site and browse other people's websites, and most people on neocities have the same goal of making websites that are more old-school and less modern.

https://neocities.org/browse

github now engages in same bullshit that all big platform do with gaslighting/shadowbanning upon account creation. if it doesn't like you, for any reason or no reason at all, it doesn't actually prevent you from signing up, but your account is blacklisted and severely limited. in particular, your github pages won't work - you can do all the steps, but it never comes online, and it won't tell you shit.