I’ve noticed a similar thing — business contexts already revolve around spreadsheets and dashboards, so the desire isn’t really “a website” as much as a stable, public view that stays in sync.
In those cases it feels less like publishing and more like exposing an existing source of truth in a readable way.
Curious whether you’ve seen this solved cleanly in Microsoft-centric setups, or if people mostly accept heavier tooling there.
It’s possible there are common use cases for small businesses that could be well served by a more standardized tool.
A lot of things are put on social media now which is where most people seem to hang out. (God knows why.) If you are not a Faecebook or Instagram etc member then you can't even view them.
What I find interesting is that a lot of information now lives outside traditional sites:
updates on social platforms
shared docs
spreadsheets
internal tools that get screenshotted or linked
In many of those cases, people aren’t really trying to “publish” in the classic sense — they just want a stable, public reference that doesn’t require joining a platform or logging in.
Search engines still matter, but it feels like a growing amount of content is accessed via direct links rather than discovery.
Curious whether you’ve seen good lightweight patterns for this that don’t turn into full websites.
The middle ground seems harder to find now. Thanks for sharing this view.