What is the small web? (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#11

Post by pphysch » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #3

I don't think advocating people make their entire website out of javascript, a very "big web" requirement, is smart. It just seems like they're doing so to promote their particular npm based product and cause centralization in it. No. Small web is your own server, yes, but also your own HTML. Small web is when a webpage is a webpage and not an application that is impenetrably dense and non-modular and frankly too com…

I laughed out loud when I got to the "...and that's why we're pushing a new javascript framework" bit.

JS is the asphalt for the race-to-the-bottom of frontend fashion and maximizing engagements, i.e. "The Big Web". It is not required for small, functional websites, and indeed tends to make them less small and less functional/maintainable.

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#12

Post by LAC-Tech » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 1:30 AM UTC

The Big Web has “users” – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict to their services and exploit.

This doesn't seem like it's true. I feel like it came from the unix culture. Unless they got it from drug dealers...

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#13

Post by Semiapies » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 1:31 AM UTC

"Big Tech’s tools will never dismantle Big Tech’s house."

This is a JavaScript library that runs sites on a rented server. Might as well be in the cloud.

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#14

Post by desireco42 » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 1:49 AM UTC

The thing about users was cringy, but otherwise I like this. I am not sure where to put it though, should I power up Raspberry Pi for this and let it run all the time or really use my desktop.

Maybe something distributed would be good idea. Then you can use your phone to update it. But then you get into whole crypto thing way too much?

I think this is useful thinking and exploration and if we suspend skepticism, it might be fun. I don't like seeing Twitter and FB and Youtube censoring people (and morons) all the time. I believe in the right of morons to publish stupid things.

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#15

Post by mastazi » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 1:54 AM UTC

ujetin wrote: post #5

I share the same ideals as mentioned in this article, but implementation is what matters. The person who wrote this article references mastodon as an example of the small web, but just looking at mastodon, you can see that is not what happens. Mastodon has a couple of very large hosts with thousands or hundreds of thousands of users, exactly the same as the big web that the author describes. This is because people th…

On Mastodon you can choose among dozens of servers, you can decide to change server and still be able to use Mastodon. Now compare that with Youtube or Twitter. You can fix some aspects using browser extensions[1] or clients[2] but by and large, if you don't like something about the platform, the only available choice is leaving.

[1] e.g. https://www.undistracted.app/

[2] e.g. https://freetubeapp.io/

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#16

Post by duxup » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 1:55 AM UTC

skeyo wrote: post #4

I don't see how Site.js is any different than what he describes as "big web". So you create your own website and host it on a server. That's always been possible. What am I missing?

There’s a lot in that article that equates specific tech with ideology that I don’t think makes sense.

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#17

Post by freediver » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

> Site.js is now the easiest way to set up and run your own Owncast instance. This will install Owncast, set it up as a systemd service, and serve it securely at your hostname.

Unfortunately, 99.99% of people this is meant for, that are currently users of big web, have no idea what the two previous sentences mean.

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#18

Post by lazyjeff » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 2:30 AM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #14

The thing about users was cringy, but otherwise I like this. I am not sure where to put it though, should I power up Raspberry Pi for this and let it run all the time or really use my desktop. Maybe something distributed would be good idea. Then you can use your phone to update it. But then you get into whole crypto thing way too much? I think this is useful thinking and exploration and if we suspend skepticism, it m…

I think the ideals are similar to indie web [https://indieweb.org/], so maybe the author may want to join that community. Basically the indie web feels like a mature community-based approach to what the author is describing, minus the javascript library.

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#19

Post by wjziv » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 2:35 AM UTC

softwarebeware wrote: post #8

skeyo wrote: post #4

I don't see how Site.js is any different than what he describes as "big web". So you create your own website and host it on a server. That's always been possible. What am I missing?

I think "Big Web" is a profile hosted on "cloud infrastructure" owned by a company with public stock. Whereas "small web" is a website you build/create yourself and host on your own server?

This tracks with me until I consider the server/client rapport. As far as I can read into the author's intent, this dynamic does not change when someone hosts their own server.

If anything, the "dumb delivery mechanism" only became slightly more trustworthy?

Re: What is the small web? (2020)

#20

Post by vicda » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 2:38 AM UTC

LAC-Tech wrote: post #12

The Big Web has “users” – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict to their services and exploit. This doesn't seem like it's true. I feel like it came from the unix culture. Unless they got it from drug dealers...

This is so painfully bullshit. Imagine the scientists and engineers at bell labs thinking that the operators of their machines are akin to drug addicts.