The Death of the Web (2024)
garry.net
garry.net
I spent so much time in IRC rooms and discussion forums. It wasn't doom scrolling. No one was trying to manipulate me for my time or money. Perhaps you can think of it like going down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles. But there were so many people sharing so many unique perspectives - some I became friends with and many of those remain today.
I felt something like neocities might recapture that feeling. I haven't put in enough time to see if that's the case. I do hope that for a future generation that they get to experience something like the very early web ... it truly was remarkable.
Chat obviously still exists but… I don't know. Discord et al don't feel like the IRC channels of yesteryear, but I don't know why. Not having to battle nickserv? Too much external media?
Perhaps speed is part of this. On a 56k, with 30kbps down, you couldn't rush around. Everything in the process came with load times. Forced meditation.
I miss it.
Now, FB and YouTube and Tiktok etc have gotten very good at consuming all that free time and energy.
Just a theory.
The creators aren't really tuning their output based on consumer feedback, they're actually optimizing for the platform's metrics, so it's the (algorithmic) machine incentivizing humans to essentially feed it money.
[0] https://kevinmunger.substack.com/p/in-the-belly-of-the-mrbea...
Before MySpace web designers and developers could have work all year just working with bands. Band web work basically dried up below a certain band success level over a year or two.
But since MySpace allowed custom CSS and had limited built in design options it created a new market for custom pages. The rates were mostly lower but there were probably 100X the number of bands that needed work.
One of my collaborators would say we got seduced by the idea that it wasn't about the money. That is, it was cheap enough that we could go for a while without thinking how to pay for it, then the advertising model looked like an answer.
Early on one would make the comparison to advertising on TV, radio, magazines and such. Little did we know that personalized advertising would lead to something much worse. I mean, Proctor and Gamble, who gave us the soap opera, has been around since 1837. Do any of the big YouTube advertisers like all the fake food companies or the scam supplement subscription companies or Established Titles expect to be around in 2 years?
If people had been thinking about how to pay for it from day one we'd be in a different place.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
I feel that early on, we should have had the foresight to press the microtransaction option much harder. There could have been a widely adopted standard where you load your browser or UA with money and then individual sites visited could be given permission to debit some amount per page load, hour consumed, or whatever. I would rather pay a few cents to read an article or watch a video than have surveillance capitalism ruin everything for everyone. It's not about the ads, it's about the ecosystem.
I'm sure, however, that we haven't seen how bad it gets on our current track.
Last summer I watched a lot of Tubi, which is a free advertising streaming service which has the lower tier of content that you might see on broadcast TV or cable plus generous helpings of old movies, subprime anime [1], subtitled Italian crime dramas, etc.
The ads started out really polite, with heavy rotation of ads for P&G brands like Dawn and Tide featuring black people cleaning up [2]. None of the personal injury lawyers, prescription drug ads, ads for legal and illegal medicare frauds, etc. I gave my email addresses and they mixed in a light tranche of retargeted ads from brands I'd engaged with long ago and who were famous for using retargeted ads on the web in the day.
The adtech revolution is half about tech and half about brands that take advantage of the new medium and it's certain Tubi is in the honeymoon phase today because they're still willing to lose money. Investors will expect to take profits someday, and by then cable will be gone, broadcast will suffer from neglect [4] and the ads will get worse, much worse.
I think we'll see more businesses centered around running bad ads everywhere, the only respite might be that some platforms like Amazon and Temu get so big that they trap many businesses into using them as their exclusive channel and starve other channels.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juden_Chan but also some good older stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma_%C2%BD and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accel_World
[2] their own messes
[3] https://www.avclub.com/tubi-success-hasnt-turned-profit-stre...
[4] even a few years ago the kind of normcore people who used to watch broadcast TV would seem to think I was doing some kind of hacking when I put up an antenna to get OTA television
Even in retrospect I'm not sure what monetisation would have been widely accepted in 1990.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Business_m...
Free content drives out paid-for content. It would only take a tiny percentage of sites going ad-supported. All the users would rush to them, the microtransaction sites would see this, and they would soon change their models.
Not to mention the incentives to create a way to distribute (cough pirate) paid content to people who do not want to pay. That would have broken the system from the start. Some software nerd somewhere would've figure that out.
I miss finding niche forums where we saw a number of very active members, and we could distinguish them. There was often great care curating their content. These communities have been concentrating on Reddit, and I don't like it.
Progress really has accelerated. "Big data" couldn't have been a thing without the Internet. Science through improved communication is advancing more rapidly than ever before. Just look at how quickly things change today vs. 100 years ago in all aspects of life.
Knowledge is everywhere, you just need to know where to dig to work around all of the junk. You no longer need to take up an apprenticeship to understand the basics of a given job, and knowledge as a whole is more accessible than ever before.
We really can communicate with people all over the world. The Internet is always active, because users from across the globe are always online.
The Internet has accelerated globalism. People can readily expose themselves to outside ideas and perspectives, so long as they take the effort to step outside of their algorithm-prescribed interest bubbles every once in a while. You can make friends on the other side of the planet and communicate far easier than you could ever send letters or pay for long-distance phone calls.
People still make their own websites. I'm sure there are more of them then there ever were in the '90s, they're just significantly harder to surface in the deluge of the modern Internet.
Ads, pop-ups, and modals are only experienced by people that don't know about worthwhile ad/nuisance blockers.
Ultimately, the Internet is filled with more content rather than strictly better content than ever before. Though as a consequence of more, it means there's also more great knowledge and more likeminded subcultures available than ever before, but you need a certain kind of discipline to actively work to find it. This is why I feel that information literacy is one of the most important life skills: if you can find the "good stuff", discriminate fact from fiction, and dig deeper than an AI-generated Google summary of search results, then you have the means to learn and develop talents in just about anything.
I do look back at the early 90's with nostalgia. Too bad you can never go back.
Moreover, I feel like this perspective fails to acknowledge everyone globally who benefits massively from simply having access to information I take for granted - even if it is surrounded by ads.
Lastly, I get that the proliferation of apps for tangible goods is frustrating, but there is an answer...just don't purchase that item! I've passed on loads of purchases because I don't want another app. I once went to a Mariners game and forgot I had my Leatherman in my pocket. Understandably, they wouldn't let me in, but told me I could use a nearby locker which required I install an app. I gave my ticket to someone else and walked back to work. No big deal.
I had the same experience with a mobile service provider that I use, recently.
since the last few days, the USSD code that used to work to find my prepaid recharge expiry date, so that I could recharge again in time, does not work. it doesn't even give a proper error message. it just suddenly exits, and tell me to install an app for that purpose.
mobile self service / IVR features are brain dead, and don't work a lot of the time anyway. I don't know what the reason is, except stupidity.
we didn't need to monetize anything. you need power, a computer, and a connection, that's it. that's not too hard to pay for. they printed a bunch of money and created things we didn't need or want. .com bubble my ass. how much of those trillions over the years have actually produced value? nay, it was an easy way to build wealth and suck up printed money while they on-boarded users who will never know those times but always silently long for them. who was it that said be careful who you give your power to?
https://www.zippia.com/advice/how-many-people-use-the-intern...
also the amount of content etc. For all sorts of tastes. I was just watching a comparison test of Craftsman wrenches from 100 years ago, 50 years ago and today. You just didn't have that sort of important content in the early days. https://youtu.be/VTSGAyyLzvo
It's cliche to malign mass market consumerism, but it really is a lowest common denominator phenomenon. I feel like the internet has made grifting so scalable that it's getting more and more difficult to consume.
The sad thing is that it would take only about twenty of you people, you who came across this post on HN today and are now reading this comment, to build an alternative ecosystem.
The reason I didn't is to avoid a discussion of how I personally would design tools for an alternate web. I think gemini is a step in the right direction, but not enough to supplant the web for a large enough minority of users. Not that it takes many users - the web was vibrant in 1995 with 100x fewer people on it than today.
I don't know that the specific qualities I personally would want for a web replacement are the right ones for everybody, but I would add to the philosophy of gemini some sort of control - not necessarily centralized - to curb commercial activity and abuse. To attract users, it would also need more cultural cache than Gemini. There wouldn't be much content on it at first - unless its design found a loophole to facilitate piracy - so its early adopters would need to feel like they were part of some exclusive community.
Nevertheless, it can be of interest, in case someone does have the ideas. (I have seen other stuff in Hacker News and elsewhere, too.)
What are the specific qualities you personally would want for a web replacement? (You are probably right that they are not the right ones for everybody, but still it might be worth to mention.)
About control, to curb commercial activity and abuse, how would you expect that it should be done? (For most things the existing security is good enough but for commercial business you will want a better security for the purpose of the identification. But, maybe you have other ideas.)
I also have my own ideas for what I would want for a web replacement too (but, like Gemini, it does not have to destroy or be mutually exclusive with WWW or with anything else; see Gemini protocol FAQ 1.13), which I had made available (I wrote Scorpion protocol/file-format specification document).
One thing is that, it shouldn't be between Gopher (or Gemini) and WWW; instead it should be between Gemini and "WWW as it should be if it was designed better".
(Also, Gemini protocol can be made by making a TLS connection to port 1965 and then send the URL and a carriage return and line feed. This is a simplified explanation, but it is good enough to find the specification document in case you want to access it directly rather than HTTPS or something else.)
(Also note: I think that non-extensibility of Gemini protocol/file-format does not really work so well as they had expected. Some files do use extensions not mentioned in there, such as SGR codes. There are also many other ways to put extensions, such as into the X.509 certificate (and since TLS is mandatory, such a thing will always be available), as hidden Unicode characters (since they insist on using Unicode), trailing spaces (like ProleText does), and other ways.)
I'd be happy with something like markdown instead of HTML. If the format is simple enough, the user could choose a global stylesheet and have it actually make sense for all the sites they visit.
For most sites, Javascript provides negative value. So... build a browser that has a couple hooks for very common, useful dynamic functions, and include no scripting language.
Images are kind of a conundrum. They're pleasant, but open the door to obnoxious garbage like ads, and workarounds for missing features. One compromise might be to allow only thumbnail resolution images - maybe use ML to scale them back up, maybe just show them blocky.
Another problem with the modern web is the unimaginable amount of fraud and lies. There are a few initiatives out there to provide pseudonymous identity verification and also information authentication. A better web would include something like these so that an author can prove data about what they claim (eg: that they live in France, that they have a PhD in Biology, etc).
I believe some of the newer social networks (like Mastodon?) have worked on distributed moderation. That is an important piece also, because humans are very creative about abusing rules, and there needs to be a way to eject bad actors.
Those are some of the thoughts I've had, mainly about sites for articles and blog posts. One would need to change a few details to support other use-cases, such as commerce sites or social networking. On the current web, these essentially all work the same way. So a browser without much scripting could provide some basic template to support them.
I agree. (It also has some features that are counterproductive, or things that interfere with other possible useful features, etc. Some of the commands are potentially useful but CSS and JavaScripts can get in the way.)
(Another problem with the complexity of WWW is the mess it makes by having to add or change other stuff to work around it and then that does not work very well either and is also not very well designed either.)
> If the format is simple enough, the user could choose a global stylesheet and have it actually make sense for all the sites they visit.
I agree that the user can specify global stylesheet to make sense for anything, is suitable. Gemini and Scorpion file formats deliberately do not allow authors to specify styles, in order to ensure that the user can control it instead. (This also means
However, this can work even with HTML in some cases (although I don't know of any implementations of this), that only uses a subset of it. However, if a CSS is provided anyways it might not know how important it is, but one way is to detect only styles of standard HTML commands, and if those are the only styles that are present, then it should probably be safe to override it with the user's stylesheet without breaking it. (Even if it does not meet these criteria, the user could still override a specific site or a specific stylesheet with their own, and I often do so on my computer.)
> For most sites, Javascript provides negative value. So... build a browser that has a couple hooks for very common, useful dynamic functions, and include no scripting language.
I also agree with that, too. However, there are a few different kind of dynamic functions.
There is also the consideration of separation of "document web" and "application web", although the way that this separation is doing and how much separation, is another question, and one that I had considered and have some ideas about, too.
My idea in Scorpion protocol is the conversion file. This is always a separate file from the document file; it deliberately cannot be used inside of the document file. This can be used to display unrecognized file formats, and some other uses, but it is always by the control of the end user (who can also override it with their own), never automatically executes programs,
> Images are kind of a conundrum. They're pleasant, but open the door to obnoxious garbage like ads, and workarounds for missing features. One compromise might be to allow only thumbnail resolution images - maybe use ML to scale them back up, maybe just show them blocky.
Another problem is making the file size for loading bigger than it needs to be. I think that what you describe is not the solution anyways, though. Another way would be to make pictures to not be loaded automatically by the document, but you can link to them and select them if you want to view them.
> Another problem with the modern web is the unimaginable amount of fraud and lies.
This is a different issue than the protocol and document itself. However, if you can add metadata, then digital signatures, X.509 certificates, etc can be added in case you want to verify it. In some cases, it is better to just go there instead of using the computer to prove it, but that is not always appropriate. (It also does not have to be mandatory; you can still have free speech to write what you like to do. Nobody will be required to read it, but they can if they want to do.)
> One would need to change a few details to support other use-cases, such as commerce sites or social networking. On the current web, these essentially all work the same way. So a browser without much scripting could provide some basic template to support them.
For commerce, I had idea of a "computer payment file" (probably DER-based, and with asymmetric cryptography, and some other stuff), that is independent of the protocol and is also independent of the internet. Such a file can be prepared locally using suitable software and then sent to the business that you are making a purchase from.
For social networking, it can depend on some specifics, also.
(You can also see my other comment about the Scorpion conversion file. When it needs to execute a program, uxn is used (which is much simpler than JavaScript or WebAssembly), and it is always under the control of the end user; furthermore, it is specified for a specific use (unlike WWW; since in WWW, programs will run (or not run) without anyone knowing why) so that if you already have your own program for that use, you can use that one instead (which might be more efficient as well as other benefits).)
About control, to curb commercial activity and abuse, how would you expect that it should be done? (For most things the existing security is good enough but for commercial business you will want a better security for the purpose of the identification. But, maybe you have other ideas.)
I also have my own ideas for what I would want for a web replacement too (but, like Gemini, it does not have to destroy or be mutually exclusive with WWW or with anything else;
instead it should be between Gemini and "WWW as it should be if it was designed better".
(Also note: I think that non-extensibility of Gemini protocol/file-format does not really work so well as they had expected.
I am not sure that it is necessarily what is or should be the requirement, or that such a system is that helpful enough anyways.
If you are trying to do business, then you should need to verify that it is with the business that you are trying to communicate with and not a different one, so Let's Encrypt is not good enough since that only verifies the domain name. However, sometimes this is not necessary, anyways.
For revoking access, I agree that there can be other ways. For example, someone can provide revocation files and then some users might decide to trust those revocation files or not.
> I'm actually not so sure it's good to provide easy access from the normal web.
You might be right. (Scorpion file format uses TRON code rather than Unicode, which might have the side effect of making it difficult to access from the normal web, although that was not the reason for this decision. However, as you describe, this side effect may be beneficial, anyways.)
> Yes, Gemini is a little too dry.
Yes, and a few people had thought so. However, my comment is not only about what Gemini doesn't do, but also about things that WWW doesn't do, too.
> I've always found it interesting primarily because Gopher is nostalgic to me from my first few months on the internet way back in the age of the dinosaurs
Gopher is still in use, and Gemini FAQ also says it is not going to destroy Gopher either.
But if 20 people design an alternate system (protocol, browser, security features, etc) from scratch, and their incentives are right, yes they could come up with decent protections against users with bad incentives and against bots.
As McLuhan wrote, "The Medium is the Message". AFAICT, the medium known as "the web" is (paradoxically) not about interconnection, but its core property is fragmentation.
This intrinsic nature is turbocharged via algorithmic per-user "engagement optimization".
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The death of the web, indeed.
Complaining about a forest fire when you've thrown your share of cigarettes is rich.
the former was a website / pre-social-media-but-like-it site, with an email service, iirc, and the latter was a web browser.
I used them for a while, I thought they were good for a while. after that I don't remember what happened. they probably shutdown sometime later.
but they were interesting at the time.
Now that reminds of the weird Internetführerschein ("internet driver's license") courses for nontechnical folk in Germany. Though these were entirely optional and so not cool.