What Is the Small Web?
1–10 of 122 posts
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#2Also "Rediscovering the Small Web": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23326329
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#3I’m not sure if I’m 100% sold on this. The service sounds like ( in their own terms ) “Big WEB” but the in a server that is... “owned”? By the user renting that server.
Honestly it just sounds like every other server farm out there. Rent a server, put your data on it, hope the service doesn’t go down and trust that the company isn’t selling your data behind your back.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea they propose. But mechanically, it seems to work like any other place.
Want to convince me? Make a service where I can rent my own server ( not just a portion of it ) and physically own it. Nobody, not even the provider, can access it without my explicit permission in written form ( email with digital signatures ).
Until then, this “Small Web” service just sounds like every other server provider out there.
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#4In the era of 5G, massive storage and incredibly powerful CPUs, we really should be exploring the home server space, as it has scope for huge improvements in terms of enabling non-technical people to own their data and operate 'servers'. This would actually realise the dream of a distributed network of full-fledged peers and also put tremendous power in the hands of ordinary people.
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#5Would a "small web" require giving up search, recommendation engines, upvotes, etc. Doesn't something like hn necessarily require centralization?
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#6Coining up a new catchy term while simultaneously trying to sell your new and shiny thing rings all kind of alarm bells.
At least their software is "non-colonial" which is the 1st time I've seen this term applied to software.
Software has never been cheaper and easier to use. If anybody wants to put the smallest amount of effort they can do all this stuff.
Maybe people are smarter and know the Internet is a Dark Forest and maybe staying off it or within the confines of big forstresses is not such a bad idea.
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#7I’m not sure if I’m 100% sold on this. The service sounds like ( in their own terms ) “Big WEB” but the in a server that is... “owned”? By the user renting that server. Honestly it just sounds like every other server farm out there. Rent a server, put your data on it, hope the service doesn’t go down and trust that the company isn’t selling your data behind your back. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea they propose.…
I think it’s simpler. This smells like a load of marketing to justify the existence of another silo which is controlled by some form of vanity ideology.
Nope.
We still have plenty of choices which don’t need an ideology shipped with it. I’m good with a text editor, an open source OS and a VPS, colo or some hooky box under my desk hanging off my ADSL line. That’s the small web that isn’t consumed by some portalisation which is really the issue isn’t it which is not being solved here by trying to create another one?
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#8I’m not sure if I’m 100% sold on this. The service sounds like ( in their own terms ) “Big WEB” but the in a server that is... “owned”? By the user renting that server. Honestly it just sounds like every other server farm out there. Rent a server, put your data on it, hope the service doesn’t go down and trust that the company isn’t selling your data behind your back. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea they propose.…
I didn't get to that point in the article, but seriously for all the paragraphs I read I thought they were just making software that I could run in my old laptop at home acting as a web-server, or a Peer-to-Peer browser-based thingy. /sighs. Well not the first time I read a cleverly disguised infomercial that eats its tail.
On a more positive note, running stuffs in my old laptop at home has proven a great way to keep connected with friends without the surveillance. But I don't see a neat way to pack the technical knowledge I used for that for people without technical knowledge... if you don't update your own setup, you have either to have a friend or friendly technician who does it, or trust Corp to push updates remotely to your home-whatever, which is just as bad as using Corp servers directly. I think that the only way out of the conundrum is technical literacy for everybody.
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#9In the era of 5G, massive storage and incredibly powerful CPUs, we really should be exploring the home server space, as it has scope for huge improvements in terms of enabling non-technical people to own their data and operate 'servers'. This would actually realise the dream of a distributed network of full-fledged peers and also put tremendous power in the hands of ordinary people.
5G and IPv6 (which does not require NAT).
I think another major area of research for many years has been content-oriented networking.
I see many ideas addressing the same problems from different angles. To me it's a question of which ones are going to become popular and when.
I mean things like IPFS are already popular to a limited extent.
There are home server startups or products out there. Most are just not super popular yet.
Re: What Is the Small Web?
#10I’m not sure if I’m 100% sold on this. The service sounds like ( in their own terms ) “Big WEB” but the in a server that is... “owned”? By the user renting that server. Honestly it just sounds like every other server farm out there. Rent a server, put your data on it, hope the service doesn’t go down and trust that the company isn’t selling your data behind your back. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea they propose.…
> Make a service where I can rent my own server ( not just a portion of it ) and physically own it.
So, a dedicated server? Of course, you still have to trust the provider not to access it, but the only time I know they've accessed it is when I scheduled a replacement for a faulty hard drive. I was able to schedule that access for my convenience (so that I could rebuild RAID after replacement) and they had my permission to do so.
I don't see how this is opposed to their project, though I don't fully understand the difference between running Site.js + Hugo versus just Hugo.