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What Is the Small Web?

ar.al

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Re: What Is the Small Web?

#51

Post by outsomnia »

gonehome wrote: post #23

I think this is a good idea and I think making it easy for people to host their own services is valuable. [0] It’s also been tried a few times with little success (sandstorm.io). I think the problem is deeper, modern infrastructure is messy to run, it’s hard to configure, and every thing has to be specifically tweaked to work. Something that works for regular users will require extensive tooling to be useful and will…

With respect, the blog post you pointed to is a load of self-referential blather, when I go to the top of urbit.org I can't see anything because my browser blocks content hosted on google, this project evidently doesn't even try to walk its talk.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#52

Post by kgraves »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #25

> Currently, all our developer tools and technical infrastructure comes from Big Tech and the Big Web. They are optimised for creating Big Tech and the Big Web. What the fuck are you talking about? Nobody forces you to host your personal website on a k8s cluster. > While we can repurpose some of them for our own uses, we also need tools specifically optimised for building single-tenant web applications and the Small…

> What the fuck are you talking about? Nobody forces you to host your personal website on a k8s cluster.

But he is right, almost all the dev tools we used are by surveillance capitalists only further entrenching our reliance on them, think React, Pytorch, React Native, or even K8S etc.

These tools only benefit the the big tech companies and we are going down a path of no return.

> How about Apache for local testing and a ftp server to a webspace at [INSERT WEBHOSTING COMPANY HERE]. Existed for decades, well tested and easy to use.

This is way too technical for most people, Aral is building something everyone can use in a few steps and has privacy built in.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#53

Post by kgraves »

rabidrat wrote: post #11
thinkloop wrote: post #5

Would a "small web" require giving up search, recommendation engines, upvotes, etc. Doesn't something like hn necessarily require centralization?

I think HN is still small web. It's custom-written by one or a few people, doesn't make money, isn't trying to take over the world.

HN is owned by Y Combinator which funds surveillance capitalist startups, so absolutely not.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#54

Post by kgraves »

gonehome wrote: post #23

I think this is a good idea and I think making it easy for people to host their own services is valuable. [0] It’s also been tried a few times with little success (sandstorm.io). I think the problem is deeper, modern infrastructure is messy to run, it’s hard to configure, and every thing has to be specifically tweaked to work. Something that works for regular users will require extensive tooling to be useful and will…

Urbit is extremely cryptic but I do like the idea as long as they don't include any 'blockchain' nonsense.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#55

Post by kgraves »

kanox wrote: post #40
torgian wrote: post #3

I’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 don't get it, isn't it already easy to run your own server in a closet at home? You need a static IP (which is still very common, and getting easier with IPv6) and a linux box that is always plugged in. It's less convenient that renting a VM or VPS somewhere and that is again less convenient than a fully managed web presence, but you can do it.

Aral is trying to make this process easier [0]

[0] https://sitejs.org/

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#56

Post by detaro »

rglullis wrote: post #31

Appropriate all the good values and ideas from https://indieweb.org/ , re-heat it add some feel-good word salad and we have this "Small Web". Yes, by all means let's get back to a more decentralized and distributed web. But providing a service where you are still hosting your site on someone else's servers and on someone else's domain and calling for values is just digital green-washing.

... and forget to mention Indieweb. Another all-in-one solution compatible with Indieweb and Fediverse tech, with optional hosting as a service, would be a great project to that goal, and an addition to the ecosystems. But no, has to be its own thing.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#57

Post by kgraves »

open-source-ux wrote: post #42

It's not clear what this "Small Web" gives users instead of simply running a WordPress installation on a VPS or a shared hosting plan. In fact, the "Small Web" command line installation instructions on the accompanying site.js website are considerably more complicated that the easy one-click installation process widely available for WordPress. This suggests the "Small Web" will appeal only to technically savvy users…

This is possibly the only criticism I have with Site.js, but I do wish Aral can build around a GUI for his command line tool.

But agreed, something like Ghost or Wordpress looks and is more easier than Site.js

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#58

Post by ivanhoe »

My problem with all these similar privacy-oriented services is that they're basically saying: "Don't trust others, trust us". And, OK, Aral Balkan is a well-known figure so I probably would trust him on a word, but I'd much more prefer to have a way to truly, physically have a full control of the sites and the data. I can do that now by having a server under my desk, but most of people can't. For that to become available to the wider public we'll need something more innovative than just updating EULA on 3rd party hosting services to be more privacy friendly. Not that it's bad, it's better than nothing, but I'd really like if we could move the focus more into the direction of p2p web or coming up with something new, even better.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#59

Post by kgraves »

detaro wrote: post #56
rglullis wrote: post #31

Appropriate all the good values and ideas from https://indieweb.org/ , re-heat it add some feel-good word salad and we have this "Small Web". Yes, by all means let's get back to a more decentralized and distributed web. But providing a service where you are still hosting your site on someone else's servers and on someone else's domain and calling for values is just digital green-washing.

... and forget to mention Indieweb. Another all-in-one solution compatible with Indieweb and Fediverse tech, with optional hosting as a service, would be a great project to that goal, and an addition to the ecosystems. But no, has to be its own thing.

This 'indieweb' was sponsored by Google, hardly going to be in line with the goals of Aral's 'Small Web'.

Re: What Is the Small Web?

#60

Post by bergstromm466 »

lvturner wrote: post #12
m0xte wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed, my 'Small Web' is a couple of Raspberry Pi plugged in to my router exposing services that are useful to me - the more I use it and the more tech news I read, the more I want to expand both the robustness and diversity of my personal services.

Have you written about that somewhere? What kinds of services do you run yourself?
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