A necessary pep talk for many of us I think, and hopefully will turn out to be prescient. We could definitely have stuck to 'old web' corners all this time, but most of us didnt, and I think part...
A necessary pep talk for many of us I think, and hopefully will turn out to be prescient. We could definitely have stuck to 'old web' corners all this time, but most of us didnt, and I think part of the reason is that the walled garden, it had morphine in the water. I think we're going to have to reckon with the fact that social media was engineered to be addictive if we're going to turn a corner on this thing.
That means building better alternatives and also persuading users to wean themselves off the eye-junkfood. We're facing uneven odds, but every day more people are waking up to the harm compulsive scrolling does to their lives.
I remember being a Twitter refugee to mastodon, which has no algorithm, and seeing people complain that this new site "just doesn't do it for me". Yeah man, you just gave up heroin and now you're tucking into a salad. It's not going to hit the same buttons.
I mostly agree with you. But I also think you shouldn't underestimate just how quickly content dries up for 99% of the sites outside of those gardens. There's an addictive effect to wean off, but...
I mostly agree with you. But I also think you shouldn't underestimate just how quickly content dries up for 99% of the sites outside of those gardens. There's an addictive effect to wean off, but it also does genuinely feel like leaving an oasis and trying to fend in a desert until (if ever) you find that replacement. Sites you rely on for certain niche news could report stuff minutes after it happened where the outskirts of the net might mention it in passing a week later, for example.
It's hard to shake that feeling off until you find a community and/or become more of that power poster yourself. That's where the network effects really makes this concept struggle.
That's a good point - the newer, more niche platform has always had the advantage of seeming more exclusive and dynamic. Advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the equation.
That's a good point - the newer, more niche platform has always had the advantage of seeming more exclusive and dynamic. Advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the equation.
Thoughtful article from the excellent Molly White on taking the web back from the oligarchs. Curious to hear thoughts from others who remember what the web was before it got to how it is now.
Thoughtful article from the excellent Molly White on taking the web back from the oligarchs. Curious to hear thoughts from others who remember what the web was before it got to how it is now.
I remember the web from about the late 90s on. I remember hobby sites, fan sites, webcomics, personal sites, browser games and animations, sites which housed useful or fun applications to download...
I remember the web from about the late 90s on. I remember hobby sites, fan sites, webcomics, personal sites, browser games and animations, sites which housed useful or fun applications to download created by enthusiasts, and early "blogs", I guess you could call them, in which the site owner would write longform articles on various subjects or chronicled small life adventures they had. These things all still exist in some form or another, but bespoke sites are much more rare compared to the Tumblr accounts and whatnot.
But the thing is...
I can't remember how I found them.
Of course, search engines existed back then (I still remember how much of a breath of fresh air Google was to use, at first). But that only shows you what you're searching for in the first place. I don't know how I came across random new sites that I wouldn't have known to search for. I never really used StumbleUpon or Digg, and I didn't often bother to explore webrings or the List o' Links everyone had on their own website. My friends and I would send each other links if we found something interesting, but that doesn't explain the volume of content needed to spend all day attached to my computer, which is what I did. Of course, a large part of my day was chatting with my friends, and playing games, and re-exploring content I already knew about. But somehow I was always finding something new, too.
Once I made a Reddit account, I think I forgot completely how to surf the web. Although that's about the time the web was really starting to become more homogenized too, I think. It had been slowly trending that way for a while, but the 2010s really saw a shrinkage in unique sites. My timeline may be skewed here; my memory's a bit fuzzy on the order of events.
Anyway, I am certainly all for reviving the indie/small web. I know there are multiple efforts out there. I think encouraging people to be more hands-on with their online content will boost creativity and thoughtfulness and less disposable content. Although I would like to make it clear that I acknowledge that creativity and thoughtfulness can happen anywhere, and also that being "hands-on" doesn't necessarily have to mean creating your website entirely from scratch.
I'm just not sure how to encourage discoverability, either from the point of view of the one creating or the one browsing. I know there are search engines tuned to the indie web, but again you have to have an idea of something to look for. There are collections of indie sites out there, but I think a lot of us who remember the web of 20 years ago also forget how young and full of time and energy we were back then. ... Well, to be honest, I'm hoping that's just me who's less able to put forth the effort. I hope other people still have the energy to click a random website from a list and fully explore some lovely weirdo's neurotic ramblings and fanart (affectionate). I genuinely want that to happen and to keep happening. I just think most everyone who is used to the internet of today -- whether we became accustomed to it over time or grew up in this era -- would have to consciously re-train their brains to allow that mindset.
I'm sure I cultivated them from people posting here, but I've had good success with the following: https://search.marginalia.nu/ https://theforest.link/ I've just saved both of those as favourite...
I'm sure I cultivated them from people posting here, but I've had good success with the following:
I've just saved both of those as favourite links on my phone browser and use them, the former to idly search things I'm vaguely interested in, the latter to follow the random link trail, when I'd otherwise be doom scrolling. I save bookmarks for sites I like, and send them to my friends/groupchats. I think it has really improved my quality of life, sad as that is. There's also the Kagi Smallweb, which I've had some success with, but it tends a bit more towards silicon valley tech blogger content
Thanks so much for those links. I'd heard of Marginalia, but I hadn't been able to think of any use cases for it. That's probably a limit on my own creativity there; I hadn't really thought of...
Thanks so much for those links. I'd heard of Marginalia, but I hadn't been able to think of any use cases for it. That's probably a limit on my own creativity there; I hadn't really thought of replacing some of my regular searches on major search engines with Marginalia searches -- perhaps for how-tos and other things people might write up as a passion project. It says not to depend on it for finding facts, but, well. I certainly can't depend on finding facts elsewhere, either.
I hadn't seen The Forest before, and I appreciate it! I've clicked and explored a few times in the past day. I wrote up my thoughts in another comment you'll probably see, since I mentioned you in it.
You're very welcome! I share a bit of your frustration about knowing where to start on marginalia. For me, I think the trick is to think of it in a slightly different way to the very specific way...
You're very welcome! I share a bit of your frustration about knowing where to start on marginalia. For me, I think the trick is to think of it in a slightly different way to the very specific way we usually search, using highly tuned and focused search engines and a web that probably contains a page with the exact answer we're looking for. Instead, I try to search for more general interests, and try to hold more of an open mind on what I consider a correct result, i.e. something interesting rather than something that fits the query exactly. For example, searching things like "hiking oxfordshire" or something I've come across on Wikipedia recently, transcendental meditation, etc.
All of this fits in my mind in the same space to trying to unlearn constantly being in productivity-brain, where everything I do has to be in the service of a project, or a piece of work, and trying to use some time to just play and be creative and 'let things in'. I think that's what we're seeking when we scroll on social media, a lot of the time - that escape, fun, and freedom of play, alongside input of novelty. I suppose we've kind of forgotten how to do it ourselves because the need is poorly met, fed to us in the passive scroll, with all of its attendant doom.
Maybe it's a little bit like if you don't read a book for a long time, it's really hard to focus for more than a minute. It's much easier to watch TV. Maybe that has something to do with how you describe being able to more intuitively browse the web this way before, it's certainly the case when me and the web were younger, too. I can only see it as positive that there are such impressive movements surrounding even making it possible to use the web in this way, but it will take some time and effort on our part to reconfigure ourselves into doing so :-) It helps that the rewards are great.
It might be hard to remember at this point, but Google was much more willing to show you "weird" stuff back then. These days, top search results are pretty reliably some combination of: The Web...
I can't remember how I found them.
It might be hard to remember at this point, but Google was much more willing to show you "weird" stuff back then. These days, top search results are pretty reliably some combination of:
The Web sites of the biggest companies selling a product related to your search.
Reddit/Quora/StackOverflow posts.
Blogspam and low-quality product lists.
It didn't used to be like that. It used to be a lot less predictable and more, for lack of a better word, "organic". You would find weird stuff without even really trying.
Don’t forget typing random words and adding .com or .net afterwards. So many homepages, shrines, and bizarre pornos. Sadly, doing the same today either returns established corporate brochures or...
Don’t forget typing random words and adding .com or .net afterwards. So many homepages, shrines, and bizarre pornos.
Sadly, doing the same today either returns established corporate brochures or the desecrated corpses of the homepage shrines, now replaced with a registrar’s parking page shilling premium domain auctions.
You're right, I had forgotten that piece of the puzzle. Search results have been frustrating for long enough now that it's completely overwritten my memories of how they used to be. Thanks for the...
You're right, I had forgotten that piece of the puzzle. Search results have been frustrating for long enough now that it's completely overwritten my memories of how they used to be. Thanks for the reminder!
My recollection of the web is very similar to yours. I think I just found stuff through curated site overviews. Before Google changed things, search engines like AltaVista also had phonebook like...
My recollection of the web is very similar to yours. I think I just found stuff through curated site overviews. Before Google changed things, search engines like AltaVista also had phonebook like overviews with many sites categorized by topic. And it was a reasonable number, so it was actually feasible to browse through the major links in a topic and go exploring from there. Because every website had a dedicated "links to other websites" section to other websites, which formed a curation that SEO pretty much destroyed. But it also a numbers game, which make it hard to recreate today. The number of sites has grown exponentially, making some sort of quality human made curation even more valuable, but that will also lead to new gatekeepers on which sites to be included. I really think we can benefit from going back to smaller online communities, like Tildes. Millions of people on the same social network doesn't seem to go anywhere beneficial in the long run. Reddit could sort of remedy this by having tons of smaller subreddits that basically worked as their own smaller community, but that only held for so long.
You found those other sites because websites used to be internetworked. Hey, that sounds like a familiar term! In other words, websites had hyperlinks to external sites very frequently. There used...
You found those other sites because websites used to be internetworked. Hey, that sounds like a familiar term!
In other words, websites had hyperlinks to external sites very frequently. There used to be a thing called a webring where people who had related websites would like to others in a “ring” which would take users to varied and interesting places. People wrote and read blogs all on different servers and sites, and those would link out to other sites as well; not only to blogs but to news, educational organizations, public media, etc.
This kind of thing has become extremely rare these days. Take Reddit for an example. It started as a simple link aggregator. It didn’t even have comments to begin with. It only existed to help people find interesting websites external to itself. Now take a break and go to r/all. I will bet you that zero of the front page posts have an external link. The web oligarchs have monied interest in keeping you in their kingdoms, and they have taken steps to keep you from leaving.
I'm not trying to be snarky, but from my previous comment: I did sometimes, of course. I'd occasionally even go somewhere like OtakuWorld, which was THE big collection of links to anime fansites....
I'm not trying to be snarky, but from my previous comment:
... I didn't often bother to explore webrings or the List o' Links everyone had on their own website.
I did sometimes, of course. I'd occasionally even go somewhere like OtakuWorld, which was THE big collection of links to anime fansites. But honestly, the way I remember it, it felt like new content would just fall into my lap most of the time. At that point I'd be inspired to thoroughly explore it on my own.
(The rest of this turned into something much longer than the simple reply to your comment that I meant to write. Apologies; it's not really directed at you specifically.)
It's possible my recollection of the ratio is off. Human memory is a fragile and easily bent thing. But in the end, my point is that these days, active exploration of the web is a technique that not many people know how to cultivate. Many would be uninterested, and that's fine -- nobody has to make web revival their hobby (not to mention making it "trendy" would be kind of missing the point). It's kind of an uphill battle even for interested folks, though. And whenever I've seen the topic of web revival come up, I don't see any talk about this, even though I'm sure other folks have thought of it with more thoroughness than I have.
Something that's of great interest to me is what people "should" do vs. what people actually do. People "should" take the initiative to learn to explore the web on their own, and perhaps that would be the most satisfying. But that's looking at the topic in isolation, removing variables that remain relevant. How does the internet of today differ from those earlier days of a still-exciting frontier? How much free time and brainspace does each interested individual have in their day? What's their level of interest in the subject in the first place, and what other hobbies do they have that they might pay more attention to in their free time? What sort of focus-related issues (very broad category, containing more than just ADHD) might they be battling? What Algorithms™ are they subject to that might be a constant reminder of how easy it can be to let the content come to you, with very little active participation?
Saying all that, I really like the Forest link that @TallUntidyGothGF shared. It's a simple concept and not a new one, but I think it's a great mashup of old and new styles. A couple of crucial differences between it and StumbleUpon: The Forest is geared to funnel you to smaller websites rather than to something with broad mass appeal, and in order to use The Forest again you must go back to the website, rather than having the Stumble button always ready and visible to take you away somewhere else. I also think this is better than choosing from the massive list of Neocities websites, for instance, because you didn't see dozens of other options before clicking.
I've barely scratched the surface of the movement, I know. Probably there are other tools out there like this. I'd just love to see this included in the usual chat about the subject: everyone's thoughts on how to encourage the transition from addictive consumption to a slower, more thoughtful browsing. How to help along those who want to find themselves in new landscapes, but are overwhelmed by the possibilities before they take the first step.
I want to thank you for mentioning interlinking and Reddit in the same post. That unlocked me to realize that what kept the community side of Reddit organic for so much longer than other social...
I want to thank you for mentioning interlinking and Reddit in the same post. That unlocked me to realize that what kept the community side of Reddit organic for so much longer than other social media sites was the tradition of using subreddits as slashtags. I never browsed /r/all. All my subreddit discovery was either from
Google searches that returned Reddit results from subreddits I didn’t know
Seeing the slashtags and having the willingness to click every link
This is an amazing observation. I don't remember how I found anything either. Somehow I was playing these MUDs and arguing with people who were much more educated than me who were obviously...
This is an amazing observation. I don't remember how I found anything either. Somehow I was playing these MUDs and arguing with people who were much more educated than me who were obviously correct in hindsight and all the rest. I don't remember how I found any of it.
When Google came around it was like a literal bolt from the blue.
Slow. It was slow. I remember trying to browse the Kodak website on OS/2 Warp with IBM Webexplorer in 1994/1995, to see the amazing images that Kodak were showcasing on there. Simple sites, but...
Slow. It was slow.
I remember trying to browse the Kodak website on OS/2 Warp with IBM Webexplorer in 1994/1995, to see the amazing images that Kodak were showcasing on there. Simple sites, but tremendously large image files for the time. Probably would load before you clicked now.
I searched with Yahoo! and Altavista. In 1995 I was using Slackware to make my own websites with nothing but vim, and followed webrings of interest.
I even remember using gopher and wais. I chatted on IRC (still do) and ICQ (not any more).
ICQ finally closed up a few months ago. I’d still log in every so often and had others online. it’s a trip. IRC is eternal. There is an effort to get Usenet discussions going again, too.
ICQ finally closed up a few months ago. I’d still log in every so often and had others online. it’s a trip.
IRC is eternal. There is an effort to get Usenet discussions going again, too.
I tend to reply/comment before I read articles here on Tildes, in other words I often react to headlines. Not this time. This time I have read it all. It is very true. It's in the hands of geeky...
I tend to reply/comment before I read articles here on Tildes, in other words I often react to headlines.
Not this time. This time I have read it all. It is very true. It's in the hands of geeky people. If you want and you also can or are able to, it is you, who can change the web, or rather start your own one.
This inspires me to once again install and set up web server on my PC that has public IP available and that I have my domain linked to. Nowadays I use it for my own stuff, but I'm able to host my ow website there and I should. I suppose I will restart my blog then. It will probably be a bit strange of a mess including setting up things on my server(s), buying stuff, reviewing games, commenting on videos I've seen and bitching about the state of internet of today.
I've been leaning towards doing the same--I have a spare PC (my last gaming rig) with 3TB of storage and I'm thinking about setting up a server with a blog, which I used to do all the time but...
I've been leaning towards doing the same--I have a spare PC (my last gaming rig) with 3TB of storage and I'm thinking about setting up a server with a blog, which I used to do all the time but haven't in years. I'm kind of looking forward to learning about all the various pieces. I know just enough about doing a project like this to be dangerous, having had a hobby server or two a long time ago, but there's a ton about server setup and maintenance that I either never learned or have become super-rusty on.
If I go for it, I will probably make it pure HTML. That way there is probably the least chance of someone hacking in. I don't want to use Wordpress or other such thing and I certainly won't code...
If I go for it, I will probably make it pure HTML. That way there is probably the least chance of someone hacking in. I don't want to use Wordpress or other such thing and I certainly won't code it myself - I'm able to, no problem, but I'm no expert and vulnerabilities would skyrocket if I wrote the code. So just HTML would do, probably. I will build it up on some free framework/design though as I'm very rusty and making something that shows up well on desktop AND mobile is unthinkable.
I will definitely think about it.
And my hardware is certainly much lower performance than yours but what do you really need for web server with static content?
This puts a lot of great words towards some things I've definitely been feeling. On the one hand, it seems sort of hopeless to try to get back to the "good" web (whenever that was for you...
This puts a lot of great words towards some things I've definitely been feeling.
On the one hand, it seems sort of hopeless to try to get back to the "good" web (whenever that was for you personally). But if we don't do anything then it definitely won't happen. So, we take little steps.
I try to frequent and support the sites that look most like the internet that I want (e.g. Tildes, lobste.rs, etc). It's not much, but it makes me a little happier and it feels like a small step in the right direction.
A necessary pep talk for many of us I think, and hopefully will turn out to be prescient. We could definitely have stuck to 'old web' corners all this time, but most of us didnt, and I think part of the reason is that the walled garden, it had morphine in the water. I think we're going to have to reckon with the fact that social media was engineered to be addictive if we're going to turn a corner on this thing.
That means building better alternatives and also persuading users to wean themselves off the eye-junkfood. We're facing uneven odds, but every day more people are waking up to the harm compulsive scrolling does to their lives.
I remember being a Twitter refugee to mastodon, which has no algorithm, and seeing people complain that this new site "just doesn't do it for me". Yeah man, you just gave up heroin and now you're tucking into a salad. It's not going to hit the same buttons.
I mostly agree with you. But I also think you shouldn't underestimate just how quickly content dries up for 99% of the sites outside of those gardens. There's an addictive effect to wean off, but it also does genuinely feel like leaving an oasis and trying to fend in a desert until (if ever) you find that replacement. Sites you rely on for certain niche news could report stuff minutes after it happened where the outskirts of the net might mention it in passing a week later, for example.
It's hard to shake that feeling off until you find a community and/or become more of that power poster yourself. That's where the network effects really makes this concept struggle.
That's a good point - the newer, more niche platform has always had the advantage of seeming more exclusive and dynamic. Advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the equation.
Thoughtful article from the excellent Molly White on taking the web back from the oligarchs. Curious to hear thoughts from others who remember what the web was before it got to how it is now.
I remember the web from about the late 90s on. I remember hobby sites, fan sites, webcomics, personal sites, browser games and animations, sites which housed useful or fun applications to download created by enthusiasts, and early "blogs", I guess you could call them, in which the site owner would write longform articles on various subjects or chronicled small life adventures they had. These things all still exist in some form or another, but bespoke sites are much more rare compared to the Tumblr accounts and whatnot.
But the thing is...
I can't remember how I found them.
Of course, search engines existed back then (I still remember how much of a breath of fresh air Google was to use, at first). But that only shows you what you're searching for in the first place. I don't know how I came across random new sites that I wouldn't have known to search for. I never really used StumbleUpon or Digg, and I didn't often bother to explore webrings or the List o' Links everyone had on their own website. My friends and I would send each other links if we found something interesting, but that doesn't explain the volume of content needed to spend all day attached to my computer, which is what I did. Of course, a large part of my day was chatting with my friends, and playing games, and re-exploring content I already knew about. But somehow I was always finding something new, too.
Once I made a Reddit account, I think I forgot completely how to surf the web. Although that's about the time the web was really starting to become more homogenized too, I think. It had been slowly trending that way for a while, but the 2010s really saw a shrinkage in unique sites. My timeline may be skewed here; my memory's a bit fuzzy on the order of events.
Anyway, I am certainly all for reviving the indie/small web. I know there are multiple efforts out there. I think encouraging people to be more hands-on with their online content will boost creativity and thoughtfulness and less disposable content. Although I would like to make it clear that I acknowledge that creativity and thoughtfulness can happen anywhere, and also that being "hands-on" doesn't necessarily have to mean creating your website entirely from scratch.
I'm just not sure how to encourage discoverability, either from the point of view of the one creating or the one browsing. I know there are search engines tuned to the indie web, but again you have to have an idea of something to look for. There are collections of indie sites out there, but I think a lot of us who remember the web of 20 years ago also forget how young and full of time and energy we were back then. ... Well, to be honest, I'm hoping that's just me who's less able to put forth the effort. I hope other people still have the energy to click a random website from a list and fully explore some lovely weirdo's neurotic ramblings and fanart (affectionate). I genuinely want that to happen and to keep happening. I just think most everyone who is used to the internet of today -- whether we became accustomed to it over time or grew up in this era -- would have to consciously re-train their brains to allow that mindset.
I'm sure I cultivated them from people posting here, but I've had good success with the following:
I've just saved both of those as favourite links on my phone browser and use them, the former to idly search things I'm vaguely interested in, the latter to follow the random link trail, when I'd otherwise be doom scrolling. I save bookmarks for sites I like, and send them to my friends/groupchats. I think it has really improved my quality of life, sad as that is. There's also the Kagi Smallweb, which I've had some success with, but it tends a bit more towards silicon valley tech blogger content
Thanks so much for those links. I'd heard of Marginalia, but I hadn't been able to think of any use cases for it. That's probably a limit on my own creativity there; I hadn't really thought of replacing some of my regular searches on major search engines with Marginalia searches -- perhaps for how-tos and other things people might write up as a passion project. It says not to depend on it for finding facts, but, well. I certainly can't depend on finding facts elsewhere, either.
I hadn't seen The Forest before, and I appreciate it! I've clicked and explored a few times in the past day. I wrote up my thoughts in another comment you'll probably see, since I mentioned you in it.
You're very welcome! I share a bit of your frustration about knowing where to start on marginalia. For me, I think the trick is to think of it in a slightly different way to the very specific way we usually search, using highly tuned and focused search engines and a web that probably contains a page with the exact answer we're looking for. Instead, I try to search for more general interests, and try to hold more of an open mind on what I consider a correct result, i.e. something interesting rather than something that fits the query exactly. For example, searching things like "hiking oxfordshire" or something I've come across on Wikipedia recently, transcendental meditation, etc.
All of this fits in my mind in the same space to trying to unlearn constantly being in productivity-brain, where everything I do has to be in the service of a project, or a piece of work, and trying to use some time to just play and be creative and 'let things in'. I think that's what we're seeking when we scroll on social media, a lot of the time - that escape, fun, and freedom of play, alongside input of novelty. I suppose we've kind of forgotten how to do it ourselves because the need is poorly met, fed to us in the passive scroll, with all of its attendant doom.
Maybe it's a little bit like if you don't read a book for a long time, it's really hard to focus for more than a minute. It's much easier to watch TV. Maybe that has something to do with how you describe being able to more intuitively browse the web this way before, it's certainly the case when me and the web were younger, too. I can only see it as positive that there are such impressive movements surrounding even making it possible to use the web in this way, but it will take some time and effort on our part to reconfigure ourselves into doing so :-) It helps that the rewards are great.
It might be hard to remember at this point, but Google was much more willing to show you "weird" stuff back then. These days, top search results are pretty reliably some combination of:
It didn't used to be like that. It used to be a lot less predictable and more, for lack of a better word, "organic". You would find weird stuff without even really trying.
Don’t forget typing random words and adding .com or .net afterwards. So many homepages, shrines, and bizarre pornos.
Sadly, doing the same today either returns established corporate brochures or the desecrated corpses of the homepage shrines, now replaced with a registrar’s parking page shilling premium domain auctions.
You're right, I had forgotten that piece of the puzzle. Search results have been frustrating for long enough now that it's completely overwritten my memories of how they used to be. Thanks for the reminder!
My recollection of the web is very similar to yours. I think I just found stuff through curated site overviews. Before Google changed things, search engines like AltaVista also had phonebook like overviews with many sites categorized by topic. And it was a reasonable number, so it was actually feasible to browse through the major links in a topic and go exploring from there. Because every website had a dedicated "links to other websites" section to other websites, which formed a curation that SEO pretty much destroyed. But it also a numbers game, which make it hard to recreate today. The number of sites has grown exponentially, making some sort of quality human made curation even more valuable, but that will also lead to new gatekeepers on which sites to be included. I really think we can benefit from going back to smaller online communities, like Tildes. Millions of people on the same social network doesn't seem to go anywhere beneficial in the long run. Reddit could sort of remedy this by having tons of smaller subreddits that basically worked as their own smaller community, but that only held for so long.
You found those other sites because websites used to be internetworked. Hey, that sounds like a familiar term!
In other words, websites had hyperlinks to external sites very frequently. There used to be a thing called a webring where people who had related websites would like to others in a “ring” which would take users to varied and interesting places. People wrote and read blogs all on different servers and sites, and those would link out to other sites as well; not only to blogs but to news, educational organizations, public media, etc.
This kind of thing has become extremely rare these days. Take Reddit for an example. It started as a simple link aggregator. It didn’t even have comments to begin with. It only existed to help people find interesting websites external to itself. Now take a break and go to r/all. I will bet you that zero of the front page posts have an external link. The web oligarchs have monied interest in keeping you in their kingdoms, and they have taken steps to keep you from leaving.
I'm not trying to be snarky, but from my previous comment:
I did sometimes, of course. I'd occasionally even go somewhere like OtakuWorld, which was THE big collection of links to anime fansites. But honestly, the way I remember it, it felt like new content would just fall into my lap most of the time. At that point I'd be inspired to thoroughly explore it on my own.
(The rest of this turned into something much longer than the simple reply to your comment that I meant to write. Apologies; it's not really directed at you specifically.)
It's possible my recollection of the ratio is off. Human memory is a fragile and easily bent thing. But in the end, my point is that these days, active exploration of the web is a technique that not many people know how to cultivate. Many would be uninterested, and that's fine -- nobody has to make web revival their hobby (not to mention making it "trendy" would be kind of missing the point). It's kind of an uphill battle even for interested folks, though. And whenever I've seen the topic of web revival come up, I don't see any talk about this, even though I'm sure other folks have thought of it with more thoroughness than I have.
Something that's of great interest to me is what people "should" do vs. what people actually do. People "should" take the initiative to learn to explore the web on their own, and perhaps that would be the most satisfying. But that's looking at the topic in isolation, removing variables that remain relevant. How does the internet of today differ from those earlier days of a still-exciting frontier? How much free time and brainspace does each interested individual have in their day? What's their level of interest in the subject in the first place, and what other hobbies do they have that they might pay more attention to in their free time? What sort of focus-related issues (very broad category, containing more than just ADHD) might they be battling? What Algorithms™ are they subject to that might be a constant reminder of how easy it can be to let the content come to you, with very little active participation?
Saying all that, I really like the Forest link that @TallUntidyGothGF shared. It's a simple concept and not a new one, but I think it's a great mashup of old and new styles. A couple of crucial differences between it and StumbleUpon: The Forest is geared to funnel you to smaller websites rather than to something with broad mass appeal, and in order to use The Forest again you must go back to the website, rather than having the Stumble button always ready and visible to take you away somewhere else. I also think this is better than choosing from the massive list of Neocities websites, for instance, because you didn't see dozens of other options before clicking.
I've barely scratched the surface of the movement, I know. Probably there are other tools out there like this. I'd just love to see this included in the usual chat about the subject: everyone's thoughts on how to encourage the transition from addictive consumption to a slower, more thoughtful browsing. How to help along those who want to find themselves in new landscapes, but are overwhelmed by the possibilities before they take the first step.
I want to thank you for mentioning interlinking and Reddit in the same post. That unlocked me to realize that what kept the community side of Reddit organic for so much longer than other social media sites was the tradition of using subreddits as slashtags. I never browsed /r/all. All my subreddit discovery was either from
This is an amazing observation. I don't remember how I found anything either. Somehow I was playing these MUDs and arguing with people who were much more educated than me who were obviously correct in hindsight and all the rest. I don't remember how I found any of it.
When Google came around it was like a literal bolt from the blue.
Slow. It was slow.
I remember trying to browse the Kodak website on OS/2 Warp with IBM Webexplorer in 1994/1995, to see the amazing images that Kodak were showcasing on there. Simple sites, but tremendously large image files for the time. Probably would load before you clicked now.
I searched with Yahoo! and Altavista. In 1995 I was using Slackware to make my own websites with nothing but vim, and followed webrings of interest.
I even remember using gopher and wais. I chatted on IRC (still do) and ICQ (not any more).
The times they were a changin' though.
ICQ finally closed up a few months ago. I’d still log in every so often and had others online. it’s a trip.
IRC is eternal. There is an effort to get Usenet discussions going again, too.
I tend to reply/comment before I read articles here on Tildes, in other words I often react to headlines.
Not this time. This time I have read it all. It is very true. It's in the hands of geeky people. If you want and you also can or are able to, it is you, who can change the web, or rather start your own one.
This inspires me to once again install and set up web server on my PC that has public IP available and that I have my domain linked to. Nowadays I use it for my own stuff, but I'm able to host my ow website there and I should. I suppose I will restart my blog then. It will probably be a bit strange of a mess including setting up things on my server(s), buying stuff, reviewing games, commenting on videos I've seen and bitching about the state of internet of today.
I've been leaning towards doing the same--I have a spare PC (my last gaming rig) with 3TB of storage and I'm thinking about setting up a server with a blog, which I used to do all the time but haven't in years. I'm kind of looking forward to learning about all the various pieces. I know just enough about doing a project like this to be dangerous, having had a hobby server or two a long time ago, but there's a ton about server setup and maintenance that I either never learned or have become super-rusty on.
If I go for it, I will probably make it pure HTML. That way there is probably the least chance of someone hacking in. I don't want to use Wordpress or other such thing and I certainly won't code it myself - I'm able to, no problem, but I'm no expert and vulnerabilities would skyrocket if I wrote the code. So just HTML would do, probably. I will build it up on some free framework/design though as I'm very rusty and making something that shows up well on desktop AND mobile is unthinkable.
I will definitely think about it.
And my hardware is certainly much lower performance than yours but what do you really need for web server with static content?
This puts a lot of great words towards some things I've definitely been feeling.
On the one hand, it seems sort of hopeless to try to get back to the "good" web (whenever that was for you personally). But if we don't do anything then it definitely won't happen. So, we take little steps.
I try to frequent and support the sites that look most like the internet that I want (e.g. Tildes, lobste.rs, etc). It's not much, but it makes me a little happier and it feels like a small step in the right direction.