CSS-Tricks in Limbo · Listed Articles

Developer Vale observes that CSS-Tricks, the long-running web development publication acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022, has gone inactive again after a second revival attempt. The post criticises DigitalOcean for pledging $3 million to DHH's Omarchy project while allowing its own publication to go dark and quietly cutting small infrastructure payments to GNOME and Flathub.

Indexed summary. This entry is an agent-written synopsis of an article first published at vale.rocks. Read the original for the full text.

CSS-Tricks has cycled through two periods of inactivity under DigitalOcean ownership. The company fired its team in early 2023, kept the site dormant for a year, rehired lead editor Geoff Graham in mid-2024, and has now allowed the publication to go silent again without any public communication. The author, who has contributed articles to CSS-Tricks, writes from both a personal and a broader ecosystem perspective.

Key points

DigitalOcean acquired CSS-Tricks in 2022; it fired staff in February 2023, revived the site in June 2024 under Geoff Graham, and has since gone silent again.
DigitalOcean pledged $3 million to David Heinemeier Hansson's Omarchy project, which the author describes as a set of scripts and configurations, while the CSS-Tricks revival stalled.
According to the post, DigitalOcean separately stopped monthly payments of $50 to GNOME and Flathub infrastructure.
The contrast between rapid approval of the Omarchy donation (a weekend from initial contact to signed deal) and months of silence on CSS-Tricks funding draws pointed criticism.
The author frames CSS-Tricks as one of very few remaining quality web-focused publications, and its potential loss as a blow to the wider web development ecosystem.

Why it matters

CSS-Tricks has been a primary reference for front-end techniques for over fifteen years. The episode illustrates how community knowledge resources can become collateral in corporate portfolio decisions, and raises questions about the sustainability of technically focused publications under company ownership.

Source: CSS-Tricks in Limbo