I used to blog. Many (9) years ago. I took a break (https://objology.blogspot.com/2012/05/stepping-out-of-balloo...). 9 years of polyglot-ism later, I've toyed with returning to some sort of small b blogging, just for the therapeutic nature of writing about what I learn and do.

But I'm honestly at a loss where to do it. I don't really want to do the hosted-for-monetization thing again (Medium, BlogSpot, etc). I've looked at GitHub Pages/Jekyll, all the cool kids seem to be doing that? It seemed kind of complicated and end-runny. And it wasn't clear how much control I'd have over my future that way?

What do other small b bloggers do now days to control their own destiny and keep things simple?

There is a really fantastic movement of people creating "digital gardens", collections of notes and ideas and posts that can be much less formal than a traditional blog. They're very fun to create, tinker with, and to explore. Check out mine here: https://mtsolitary.com as an example, or see this great curated list: https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardeners.

There are some tools being created in this space but a lot of it is still roll-your-own. Github Pages and Jekyll (or even better, Hugo) is a good way to get started, there's plenty of simple tutorials that can get you a site up and running. And in terms of control over your future: everything in the end is just Markdown files that you can pick up and take with you wherever you go :)