Is it as young as that? I'm surprised. One of the earliest web sites I can remember is this one: "The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything" http://stefangagne.com/spatulacity/button.htm I think I was led there via "Yahoo Cool Site Of The Day" All the comments are still there! I remember laughing at the "stereo fell off the bureau" one. A comment I left there in 1994 is still there.
Awww, I'm so disappointed that the guestbook is broken. Guestbooks were one of the best features of the early web.
And by "best" I mean "pointless nostalgia," but... :)
The web became popular to mainstream culture a few years later. Although I'd been using arpnet for over a decade due to university access, I first encountered a "web browser" while working at Electronic Arts on the yet to be released 3D0 in '93 -'94. However, nobody cared diddly squat about "the web", it was empty or nonsense like usenet forums. We only cared about was DOWNLOADING DOOM! Id software released Doom, it…
It’s kind of like where Bitcoin is at (mid-90s web). Most of general public has heard of it by now, of those using most just came because “get rich quick”, and meanwhile nobody really knows if it’s even useful.
It's truly one of the greatest achievements of this century... possibly ever. I really hope TPTB don't mess it up, it seems they're always trying to. Not enough people appreciate it, just like they don't appreciate the computing power and amount of knowledge in their pockets. I see people on buses, on the streets, in cafes, just endlessly scrolling down in Facebook or something, seeing random people's videos and imag…
It was last century, wasn't it?
Yeah, but it was kind of very late, and it only really picked up this century, so I decided to go with that heh
I still find the web to be so beautiful. I can talk and meet people all around the world. I can stream hundreds of videos around every conceivable topic, in 4K60 resolution, on-demand. I can make a livelihood without ever stepping feet out of my home; and conversely, work from almost anywhere that'll give me a visa. The digitized information of our civilization is just one search away.
I agree with you overall, but the internet never been more geofenced than what we see today. Tons of content is no longer available to me as I live in the EU and apparently american companies care so much about my privacy that I can no longer access their websites. Growing up in the 90s, I remember a internet that was without geographical limitations and people doing things for love of that thing, not the perversion…
I still find the web to be so beautiful. I can talk and meet people all around the world. I can stream hundreds of videos around every conceivable topic, in 4K60 resolution, on-demand. I can make a livelihood without ever stepping feet out of my home; and conversely, work from almost anywhere that'll give me a visa. The digitized information of our civilization is just one search away.
Right? It's still so amazing. I would say more amazing than ever (thanks to new trailblazers like Alexandra Elbakyan).
I was just a kid growing up far removed from the information and happenings of the rest of the world and the web was this magical new thing that connected me to it. It was a bit of a firehose at first (well, I guess still is), but I loved it.
The only difference between now and then is that now I know how it all works. Back then the technology was completely magic. It's still just as magical in the human sense, and I am so grateful to TBL and CERN for making it happen and giving it the public! It has been so game changing for me and I grew up in the USA, I have to imagine it would be even more game changing to people curious about the world who grew up in more remote places.
Before the web we had BBSs and computer friends would meet in person gasp .
They are famous and it comes up regularly, but younger people won't know about "the Usenet" or Bully Boards (BBS). They were awesome for their time: They had awesome, engaging features, maybe on a "nerd" level O:-), back then not accessible for everyone. Today we have much better ways to interact online, kind of with the whole world and somehow everyone is online, today. Locality has lost on importance, since ways to interact remotely/online became more powerful and also accessible for all. It's really interesting where this leads to in the future. E.g. WFH (work from home, especially emphasized by "Covid"): Companies might outsource development to the lowest COL (cost of living) area in that vein. Also: Everyone is globally connected, better and better, yet somehow more and more "home alone". So interesting, somehow unavoidable and it's open to see where this develops and if we manage to make these developments positive and get the negatives under control for all/most involved.
I still find the web to be so beautiful. I can talk and meet people all around the world. I can stream hundreds of videos around every conceivable topic, in 4K60 resolution, on-demand. I can make a livelihood without ever stepping feet out of my home; and conversely, work from almost anywhere that'll give me a visa. The digitized information of our civilization is just one search away.
The web != all things transferred over TCP/IP. Talk and meet? Skype, Zoom don't run on "the web" as such; need dedicated apps even if those may be based on Electron. Video (Youtube) only has left Flash-based playback behind like 3 or 4 years ago; the resulting DRM required for video playback hasn't made purist happy, and resulted in a bitter controversy over TBL accepting interfaces to proprietary DRM into (proprieta…
The web of today is a siloed fragmentary space, a media outlet and an amplifier of mass culture. For a minority of people it still is the “repository of knowledge” that was originally envisioned, but for the majority it is a continuation of their lowly existence in digital form.
The spirit of the early web was around building hierarchical multi-level directories of stuff, around search and categorization. The Web 2.0 ideology changed all that to transform it into a user-centric “social” experience that required you to use an online identity, build your own profile and be passively bombarded with stuff on your personalized feed.
I find it fascinating that the web changed just about every industry out there, apart from the one it set out to change - academic publishing.. It's still an oligopoly, with the same, small number of players acting as gatekeepers
It would be great if a big band of Doctorates got together and committed to renouncing their PhDs if copyright (at the very least in the scientific domain) is not abolished.
They have the power to do that.
30 years after the great gift of the web we are still waiting, and Alexandra Elbakyan has shown us how amazing it is to have all scientific papers be available to everyone.
Is it as young as that? I'm surprised. One of the earliest web sites I can remember is this one: "The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything" http://stefangagne.com/spatulacity/button.htm I think I was led there via "Yahoo Cool Site Of The Day" All the comments are still there! I remember laughing at the "stereo fell off the bureau" one. A comment I left there in 1994 is still there.
I agree with you overall, but the internet never been more geofenced than what we see today. Tons of content is no longer available to me as I live in the EU and apparently american companies care so much about my privacy that I can no longer access their websites. Growing up in the 90s, I remember a internet that was without geographical limitations and people doing things for love of that thing, not the perversion…
Well, the EU has passed regulations and if I'm a business and don't make money from you and it takes money/effort to even verify whether I'm compliant with those regulations (or if I simply consider them a risk), nothing personal, but I'm going to geoblock you. That's not a comment on whether the regulations are good or bad. It's just that, as a business, if you're not a profitable customer or potential customer, I d…
Yeah, that makes sense. My point is just that, the web is all business now, and people use that to justify their decisions. It didn't use to be that way, but because of the commercialisation of the internet, we're now here, which means tons of people no longer has access to information they would if the web was still focusing on being open.