Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Does anyone remember websites?

tttthis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 386 posts

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#131

Post by stevenwoo »

marcosdumay wrote: post #104
rayiner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not great for finding stuff. I’ve complained at length about how bad it is for doing research, but recently I’ve also found it’s totally useless for finding things like reviews of products (unless it’s something like the new iPhone). It’s like legitimate reviews are a casualty in the war between Google and clickbait SEO crap.

It's amazing how between reviews, sellers, features, and availability, when I make a google (or DDG) search of some product none of the links are of the kind that I want. I've gave up googling for products I intend to buy (what has probably the largest revenue potential).

I swear the last five years or more of searching for products lead to the first two pages being fake reviews/ads. Google must make money from this otherwise they would fix it.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#132

Post by krapp »

Boothroid wrote: post #119
krapp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, people do build personal websites, and that old web still exists. Do you really believe that, with (according to Quora) ~140,000 new sites being created per day, no one is putting amateur, personal stuff on the web anymore? It's just that the web has gotten bigger and more mainstream, and most of us now limit our browsing to a few silos and then act as if everything that no longer bubbles up the filter…

But so many personal websites are just self promotion of one kind or another, and that's fine, we all have to make a living, but I'd far rather read something where someone just wants to share what they know/love. And everything looks like the same set of off the shelf web design templates. I liked the weirdness of the old web. Kind of like games on the Amiga, every site was different, and that was part of the charm.…

>Any tips on how to find the new gems?

That's a good question - I don't know. Discovery of anything not SEO optimized is difficult, and a lot of that content was on Geocities and Tripod, so the modern equivalent might just as likely be on Wordpress or a service like Wix, making the design homogeneous even if the content isn't. Ironically, I've found most off the beaten path sites through references in Youtube videos and Reddit. When I was getting my CS degree, the web design class involved building a quick personal site, so URLs connected to colleges might also be a good place to look.

But what's more likely, that no one is writing their own custom HTML sites anymore, or that some people are, but we just can't see them because they exist in their own ecosystems beyond the Googlesphere (and possibly even the Anglosphere?)

...I just realized I'm vaguely arguing for (but not defining the parameters of) a Drake Equation for the web, where N is new personal content. Even if the parameters are low, the scale of the web means N should be significant.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#133

Post by alphaalpha101 »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10
alphaalpha101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is still ton of content and much more than what I would've dreamt on the 90s. Platforms like Reddit allow everyone, whether they know HTML or not, to publish their own content and even comment on others'. The amount of good content on reddit is no larger than the amount of good content that existed before. The difference is now it's drowned out by all the Trump supporters.

Please don't bring politics into a thread that has nothing to do with politics

Personality cults aren't political.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#134

Post by jiggunjer »

userbinator wrote: post #102
dbrgn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found http://lygte-info.dk/ (website about batteries, chargers, and more stuff like that) through a search engine when looking for specific information about a LiIon cell. But then I started clicking through that maze of links and found so much useful information that I would never have thought of searching for. I spent hours "trapped" on that page. The navigation is crappy (randomly interlinked handwritten HTML-pa…

If you're interesting in electronics and software in general, and can read German (or can stand the surprisingly good Google Translate), another site I recommend: https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/

For Dutch, try tweakers.net.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#135

Post by paulddraper »

q845712 wrote: post #127
JohnBooty wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. The only way I can find product buying advice is: 1. To find a community of enthusiasts and see what they have to say about products in that space. This works pretty well for products that actually have enthusiasts. 2. Go to Amazon and read a product's bad reviews. The good reviews are nearly useless. But, with bad reviews, you have to weigh the number of bad reviews against the product's popularity. If…

I bought a subscription to Consumer Reports and have been happy with the two purchases I made on their recommendation (headphones in the $100 range, and a new food processor). Do you consider them compromised? It's actually just about time to renew my subscription and i've been wondering whether I should. I've also used your strategy of reading the bad reviews on Amazon!

Consumer Reports is top nouch and very thorough.

It can be a bit behind on the far changing stuff like electronics, and it can be pricey.

But I've never found them lacking in quality and detail.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#136

Post by hexane360 »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #92
userbinator wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays, anyone with a basic understanding of search engines can find almost anything they want within seconds. Almost anything popular and rather insipid, yes. Try to find more detailed information on very specific topics, however, and you'll discover that search engines like Google have been optimising more and more for the former content, making it harder to find the latter. I don't think that's a good thing at a…

>> Try to find more detailed information on very specific topics, however, and you'll discover that search engines like Google have been optimising more and more for the former content, making it harder to find the latter. I don't think that's a good thing at all. This. A thousand times, this. I really feel is the unfortunate consequences of our short attention span and everyone marketing towards an insanely short at…

As someone who grew up with Google and is now trying to get into niche interests, I have basically no idea how to do the real, old fashioned leg work. I still don't know exactly how much of this is Google's fault, because it remains great for providing information on a lot of more broadly accessible subjects.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#137

Post by hexane360 »

snerbles wrote: post #88
jasode wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up with 1980s dial-up modems (slow 300 baud!) to dial directly into BBS systems and USENET. I then continued dialup access into the early internet (GNN not AOL) in 1995. I now have Verizon fiber optic. To me, the modern web today is better in virtually every way compared to 1990s web surfing. + Google search engine is better than Alta Vista and Excite. + Google Maps with smooth scroll, 3D streetview, and satel…

Respectfully disagree on more votes == better. Visible score systems often lead to groupthink, and commenters aiming for the lowest common denominator in the form of karma whoring. While HN has some measures to reduce hivemind voting, it's quite rampant on the default subreddits.

It seems to me like HN still has a long way to go. I find my detailed, careful, well researched comments typically get an order of magnitude less votes than my one sentence inanities.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#138

Post by joeblau »

I thought about this a few weeks ago. I remember the late 90's actually searching around the web. Now there are so many walled gardens that individual creation is limited to posting a Medium blog or Facebook post. Today, I only visit a handful of sites and developer documentation.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#139

Post by crispytx »

jasode wrote: post #53
inetknght wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful? I would argue that it's actually a lot less useful today.

I grew up with 1980s dial-up modems (slow 300 baud!) to dial directly into BBS systems and USENET. I then continued dialup access into the early internet (GNN not AOL) in 1995. I now have Verizon fiber optic. To me, the modern web today is better in virtually every way compared to 1990s web surfing. + Google search engine is better than Alta Vista and Excite. + Google Maps with smooth scroll, 3D streetview, and satel…

The web is better today. And personal home pages or web pages are still around in the form of blogs, the only problem is that most people don't blog.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#140

Post by crispytx »

JohnBooty wrote: post #121
inetknght wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful? I would argue that it's actually a lot less useful today.

I think the Internet's gotten worse in general (and, specifically, less useful) over the last decade except for one thing: YouTube is insanely useful for learning how to do basic household stuff, minor car repairs, that kind of thing. Insane. Mundane? Yeah, but life is like at least 50% handling mundane shit like that. Maybe 90%. Maybe 95%? Want to know how to repair some brick stairs in front of your house? Sharpen…

Exactly, we're in the golden age of vlogging.
Post reply on HN