With TikTok facing a potential ban and Instagram ruining profile grids, many creators are questioning if building a presence on social media is worth the effort, given the uncertainty of the medium.

I’ve always advocated for personal websites and blogs: a platform you can truly own, free from the whims of tech billionaires. At the same time, though, I don’t shy away from sharing my work on social media.

These days, a website feels like opening a studio in a quiet, rundown part of town, while everyone is hanging out at the mall. It is flashy, lively, and all the cool kids are there. They even offer us a little corner for free, so we can speak our truths to the whole world.

That’s until the mall starts charging a fee and diverting visitors to the business placing the highest bids. Over time, you also realize that even though you got to interact with a lot of visitors, most of those interactions were fleeting. You’ve never seen those people ever again.

Yet, among the noise, meaningful connections still happen every now and then at the mall. While I’ve connected with fellow photographers through my or their websites, most of my relationships with people in this field have come through social media.

This has never been a case of the website or social media, but about embracing both the website and social media. The most beautiful, personal website is useless if no one ever visits; and your social media presence relies on whatever happens to please the owner that day of the week.

There’s no ideal solution to the problem of reaching an audience in this noisy, loud world. I believe that embracing both worlds is the best we can do.