This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen lately. I assume whoever is behind this is relatively new to the Internet, because the “small web” has been how the Internet has worked for decades now. We’ve been able to have our own web presence nearly since the web was invented in the early 90s, and affordable self-hosting has been available since the late 90s. Furthermore, the claims on that site that “all our developer tools and technical infrastructure comes from Big Tech and the Big Web” is so divorced from reality it’s astounding. The Internet largely relies on open source software and frameworks that have been developed over decades by volunteers.

If you want to have your own “small web” presence on the Internet, there’s nothing that’s stopping you. You could’ve set that up a long, long time ago using open-source software on cheap hosting providers. The problem with the so-called “small web” is that you usually also want to interact with other people when online, and that’s why things have gotten centralized over the years.