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Time to rebuild the web?

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Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#51

Post by jasode »

pjc50 wrote: post #29
realpeopleio wrote: post #13

I agree that having a few walled gardens is a problem, but having more smaller walled gardens probably won't change much. Bad actors can still sign up, post, spam, harass, etc. on several small walled gardens. What we need is a way to better identify and handle bad actors. The internet in the 90s seemed more fun and more open. Perhaps it's because the only people really participating were not interested in abusing si…

> Each person can create a single account on RealPerson.io That web page doesn't explain how they guarantee uniqueness of users or pay for the required ID checking?

>how they guarantee uniqueness of users

I was curious too so I clicked on the sign-up button to see how it worked. It immediately takes you to a page to pay $9.00 by credit-card.

I guess it guarantees you're a "real person" because bots† don't pay with credit-cards.

†(At the large scale required for profitable fraud)

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#52

Post by jacquesm »

nailer wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately removing the 'styling hacks and behavior' has split the pages up into many different components that all interact in quite complex ways. The HTML being 'purer' has not made things simpler at all. Now there are many places rather than just a few where style and functionality can be modified. And that can obscure intent quite quickly. As opposed to this is bold text which any fool (this one included) coul…

> Now there are many places rather than just a few where style and functionality can be modified. Styling is done in style sheets, functionality is done in JavaScript (with the exceptions already mentioned). Trying to create, say Hotmail in 2018 would result in a much better to understand and debug app than the 1998 version was.

For a seasoned programmer, sure. But a layperson had a much better chance of understanding an early 90's webpage with the exact same content as a modern day one.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#53

Post by fimdomeio »

majewsky wrote: post #36
fimdomeio wrote: post #33

I've been toying with the idea of creating a web 0.5 that consists mostly of a meta tag and a piece of css (body:after{...}) that hides the contents while directing users to use a textmode only browser. Rules would be page is valid if it doesn't contain css or js. I think this could be an incredible fun experiment somewhat in the same style as the tilde club. If it became popular enough who knows... maybe the communi…

> Rules would be page is valid if it doesn't contain no css and no js. I believe the double negation is wrong there. You probably mean either "if it doesn't contain any css or js" or "if it contains no css and no js".

yep. fixed.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#54

Post by staticvar »

Hedja wrote: post #23

It feels like this is already a work in progress using Beaker Browser and Dat. - Beaker lets you browse entire websites (dat archives) and fork them. - It lets you create and serve your own sites directly from the browser and seed it from a server (like a torrent). - It lets other sites create templated sites under your name for user generated content. - Visitors by default temporarily seed your website which may red…

A new version of the mobile browser with support for more Android devices is coming soon: https://bunsenbrowser.github.io

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#55

Post by yoz-y »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #42
lioeters wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of a text-only browser, back to the basics. Oh and I miss web rings!

Of course then you get into Gopher only territory. I wouldn't mind some CSS / HTML only sites like HN, your JS is limited to 5KB, jQuery isn't allowed, etc. Minify the web! Literally.

I think people that do care about this stuff already make webpages that are minimal. So there is probably no need to have a completely alternative space. Maybe just a directory/search engine that only indexes such pages.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#56

Post by return1 »

martin_drapeau wrote: post #30

When I ask friends and family who use Facebook daily, privacy and security never come up as pain points. Media is blowing everything out of proportion. Replacing Facebook with RSS or Feedly is nonsense. My friends and family have no idea what those are. Facebook makes it easy for people to connect with old friends and family members through active human interactions: like this, follow her, read that. By doing so you…

it's also a fault of the websites themselves. In the off chance that an average facebook user uses google to search and end up in a website outside facebook, they 'll be typically be pestered with signing up to a newsletter and then with a popup to get browser notifications (along with a cookie popup in europe). The User experience will be usually atrocious, with content hidden way behind the ads. At that point the user is not only lost in the UI, but has lost all trust to the website itself and runs back to its trusted facebook. Why would they ever want to subscribe to such monstrosities? It's a tragedy of the common monetization "secrets" that marketers promised equally to everyone.

If webmasters and bloggers realized the benefit of a honest , dead simple user experience, they might earn themselves a bookmark (which is currently the only alternative to social media that average users can probably understand)

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#57

Post by macspoofing »

If you want the internet for the wealthy (and Western) technocratic minonority then that's what you do. If you want the internet to be used by 7 billion people, then Facebook (or something like Facebook) it is.

I've become a believer of 'walled gardens' after watching my elderly aunt struggle with PCs and websites for years, until I set her up with an iPad, Facebook, and Skype.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#59

Post by arkh »

lioeters wrote: post #37
fimdomeio wrote: post #33

I've been toying with the idea of creating a web 0.5 that consists mostly of a meta tag and a piece of css (body:after{...}) that hides the contents while directing users to use a textmode only browser. Rules would be page is valid if it doesn't contain css or js. I think this could be an incredible fun experiment somewhat in the same style as the tilde club. If it became popular enough who knows... maybe the communi…

I like the idea of a text-only browser, back to the basics. Oh and I miss web rings!

> I like the idea of a text-only browser

Lynx is still available.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#60

Post by scandox »

I feel like he's worrying but he isn't sure about what. I don't think the problems of the internet are related to how easily people can make their own sites. It's just that the feeling that your content might actually be seen and appreciated is gone. In the 1990s if you published something online it felt good like some people are going to read this and care. Now it feels like "hey another ball tossed into the massive gaping void".

Part of this obviously is about search and curation. Part of it also is probably just the massive loss of intimacy on the web now that it is so big. It's easy to feel less relevant when you get a few hundred views, even though in the 1990s you might also have got only a few hundred views.

So what I'd like is to have a new intimate internet. It would be effectively searchable by a Google equivalent that only indexed a small subset of the internet. How exclusive it would be, how exactly it is curated and managed I have zero idea. I'm just saying that is what I would like.

Now HN: unleash your list of stuff like this that already exists.

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