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Ask HN: Is there a way to get back to the web we lost?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to get back to the web we lost?

#22

Post by austin-cheney »

The difference is only two things: walled gardens and low confidence.

Most front end developers have absolutely no idea what they are doing now. They struggle is about putting text on screen and needing frameworks larger than a circa 1998 web browser to do it. Yes, React and Angular only solve for one problem: put text on screen. On the flip side there is opportunity to make a lot money cleaning up that mess with jobs in A/B testing, test automation, accessibility, and so on.

The difference with walled gardens is that there is frequently less a direct correlation between a web address and the content that appears at that address. Frequently that is due to either telemetry and/or login state.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to get back to the web we lost?

#23

Post by subtra3t »

seydor wrote: post #10
bruce511 wrote: post #3

Naturally you're 25 years older now. So you're seeing that time from a different perspective. Age-wise I'm guessing you're in yor 40s now looking back again at a teenage self. Your lament is pretty common to adults of that age, and has been going on for hundreds of years. It has nothing to do with the Web, and everything to do with a time which was less complicated for you, a time when you first interacted with a wor…

> Your lament is pretty common to adults of that age It's not just about age but also about circumstance. I guess the first radio-pirates were also nostalgic about the era of complete freedom when everything was allowed. We just happened to live through the era of the birth of internet. The newer platforms, controlled by google and apple are draconian in comparison.

And similarly, generation Z is living through the era of the birth of similarly impactful (debatable) technologies. Perhaps gen Z will look back 20 years later, comparing their past with the times of 2040

Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to get back to the web we lost?

#24

Post by logicalmonster »

I'd think that many of here are some form of software developer, and many of us do miss the "Wild West" of the Internet we grew up with.

So, the big question is what's stopping us from building fun projects to bring back what we miss?

Is the problem the financial risk and the harder path to making money? Is it the fear of being cancelled/deplatformed? Is it we're afraid of looking stupid if we guess wrong and create a failure?

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