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30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

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Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#31

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

codegeek wrote: post #22

"What happens in an Internet Minute in 2020, for example: - Zoom hosts 208,333 meetings - There are 404,444 Netflix user streams - YouTube users upload 500 hours of video - Consumers spend $1,000,000 online - 1,388,889 people make video/voice calls" Mind blowing if you think about it. I really want to focus on the positives of WWW in this thread. I, like million others, am making a living out of WWW and that itself i…

I'd be curious to know how many combined page loads there are for PornHub (and cousins) per minute. It's just as much a part of what the web is today as any of the services listed above.

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#32

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

capableweb wrote: post #21
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comparison - the smartphone being 14 and the web being 30 really illustrates what a total warp jump it has all been. 15 years from boxy home computers connected to each other, to glowing high resolution pocket computer slabs. And then 15 years from those slabs being something totally new and revolutionary, to literally 50%* of all humans having them on their person at all times. The acceleration has definitely c…

> to literally 80% of all humans having them on their person at all times. While the number is high, it's not _that_ high (closer to 50%), at least from the sources I could find[1]. Where are you getting the 80% from? - [1] - https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w... - check the references in the bottom for digging deeper

Sorry, I didn't fact check or anything, point was just that they're commonplace, routine, cheap etc. Just a number I had in my head for some reason.

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#33

Post by laurent92 »

cm2187 wrote: post #23
laurent92 wrote: post #4

I’m more impressed that the first smartphone is only 14 years old and it has changed so much to our lives: - First, it developed the usage of superficial socialization (lifestyle show-off, body photos, up to lewd behaviors or prostitution, depression for a lot of people, massive societal dopamine addiction), - Second, Youtube was the world wild web of all politics and militant movements, - We’re in a third phase wher…

I think smartphones might be a bit older than that. I remember using some phones in 2003 that already had a basic internet connection (wap), camera, and on which you could check your emails. The first versions of a blackberry that could do emails was 1999 I think. And PalmPilots in 1997. The iphone was just a cooler and more powerful toy.

The Wap, or even the Blackberry, didn’t have an impact on society. It just enabled a few more usecases for the owner but not for the group - like carrying your work with you. The iPhone 2007, and moreso in 2010, was an entire leap forward: It enabled dozens of usecases at a time, such as using Maps, online dating with photos and geographical distance, writing reviews of restaurants… and it triggered efforts in the dumbification of UI, which meant it went widespread like wildfire, which was the condition sine qua none for social media to become relevant. None of that would have been possible with the Blackberry, its wrong commercialization tactics and its 52 buttons.

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#34

Post by rvense »

I clearly remember when I first saw the www, a few years into its life, at a meeting in the Mac users group my dad was a part of, probably at a university department or similar that had internet access.

I thought it was one of the dullest things I'd ever seen anyone do with a computer, and I didn't at all understand what was so interesting about this Netscape programme. I must have been about ten.

I did grow to find it exciting for a few a years, my misspent youth on instant messenger and bulletin boards, learning, flamewars and a few friendships that last to this days... but as I approach 40 and the damn thing has both turned into my full-time job, and become corporate shadow of its old self, something out of a bad old depressing cyperpunk novel, I do sometimes think my initial reaction was closer to the right one.

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#35

Post by lucasverra »

codegeek wrote: post #22

"What happens in an Internet Minute in 2020, for example: - Zoom hosts 208,333 meetings - There are 404,444 Netflix user streams - YouTube users upload 500 hours of video - Consumers spend $1,000,000 online - 1,388,889 people make video/voice calls" Mind blowing if you think about it. I really want to focus on the positives of WWW in this thread. I, like million others, am making a living out of WWW and that itself i…

I stopped being impressed by "one minute in the Internets" a couple of years ago. I mean, internet is at hands distance of many people now.

As beer and toilet paper. Let's move to more significant metrics like people making a living out of it, value transferred or something else :)

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#36

Post by analog31 »

Amusing anecdote: The computer that hosted the original WWW is in a little museum at CERN, open to the public. When my family saw it several years ago, it still had a hand written note taped to the side of it, something to the effect of "Please don't turn this computer off."

It still amuses me to think that at one point, the entire WWW depended on someone remembering to not shut it down.

Edit: See below. Reality is much more accurate than my memory. ;-)

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#38

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

tehjoker wrote: post #28
heresie-dabord wrote: post #2

> Our vision is for a World Wide Web that is more inclusive, and more respectful of its users: a Web that supports truth better than falsehood, people more than profits, humanity rather than hate. I support the principles, but I can't give the real implementation a passing grade.

It's popular for liberals to say things like "truth better than falsehood" but they really mean that they want to be able to control what other people read. Only half of what they think is true at a given time actually is. The other half of the equation is that the more well monied get their message out better than the unmonied. You can't use technology to fix that. Most of the conspiracies we deplore are advanced by…

> It's popular for liberals to say things like "truth better than falsehood" but they really mean that they want to be able to control what other people read.

Can you conceive of a world, or even just one person, who could say "truth better than falsehood" and actually mean it?

> The other half of the equation is that the more well monied get their message out better than the unmonied.

There's a mixed record on this, really. Yes, massive but subtle spending can result in deep and wide dispersion of a "message". But then there's Rebecca Black and "Friday", too.

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#39

Post by [deleted] »

Radim wrote: post #14
laurent92 wrote: post #4

I’m more impressed that the first smartphone is only 14 years old and it has changed so much to our lives: - First, it developed the usage of superficial socialization (lifestyle show-off, body photos, up to lewd behaviors or prostitution, depression for a lot of people, massive societal dopamine addiction), - Second, Youtube was the world wild web of all politics and militant movements, - We’re in a third phase wher…

Allow me to offer an opposing anecdote: smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life. Most of the time I don't even know where my smartphone is (except for car navigation). Do people really consider smartphones "more impressive" / impactful than the World Wide Web?

[deleted]

Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World

#40

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

echelon wrote: post #7

The WWW was pretty great at age 10, but took a wrong turn in its teen years. We now do signal amplification of the worst of humanity. The giants are walled gardens, and in another 10-15 years the "web" will be subsumed by Facebook, and Google's "Cromification/AMPlification" (content lives on their servers and there is no URL bar.) We've destroyed much of the quirkiness and novelty. Now instead of sharing content and…

> We've destroyed much of the quirkiness and novelty.

Yawn. People say this over and over again. It hasn't been destroyed. It's just not at the top of your search results.

Within the last week, HN's front page had a link to this little gem:

  http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/locations.htm
... a catalog of every (?) redwood tree in the British Isles, lovingly maintained and deliciously retro. How can you believe that the quirky and novel have been destroyed when sites like this (and there are millions more) are still out there?
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