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The unbearable sameness of the modern web

blog.rachelbinx.com

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Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#11

Post by bawolff »

onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

Umm, it reminds me of all the websites when VRML was a hip fad in the 90s (but obviously higher resolution/better).

But still, this misses the authors point - that mainstream websites have become homogenous. Obviously its not about literally every last website, but bemoaning what is currently trendy.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#12

Post by bluetomcat »

onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

It's boring because we consume content mostly through platforms that incentivise a certain mode and format of content creation. There is also the bias on recency and the fear of missing out "important" contemporary events and news. The interesting content is still there, but our perception and short attention spans mostly ignore it.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#13

Post by wslh »

onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

The problem now is finding interesting content, in the recent past it was enough to fire some few keywords on a search engine. Even leas advanced search engines found those sites. Google beat them adding some kind of authority but at the end the authority is gamed. Well content sites giving a s*t to SEO remain under layers and layer of dust.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#14

Post by onion2k »

bawolff wrote: post #11
onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

Umm, it reminds me of all the websites when VRML was a hip fad in the 90s (but obviously higher resolution/better). But still, this misses the authors point - that mainstream websites have become homogenous. Obviously its not about literally every last website, but bemoaning what is currently trendy.

Umm, it reminds me of all the websites when VRML was a hip fad in the 90s (but obviously higher resolution/better).

I made a few experimental VRML websites in the late 90s (on a lovely SGI Irix..) and I can see why you'd say that, but it's only superficially similar in the 3D-in-a-browser sense. VRML experiences were usually terrible and never pretty.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#15

Post by uonpopular_th »

onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

The web is boring now because everyone interesting is banned by bland mediocrities. If you don't follow the current thing to the letter every major social media platform - bar twitter for the last two months - would remove you from circulation pretty much instantly. The only people who agree with everything that is popular right now are the ones incapable of thinking. Ergo a chat bot trained on old forum data seems more genuine than anyone left on Reddit.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#17

Post by marginalia_nu »

wslh wrote: post #13
onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

The problem now is finding interesting content, in the recent past it was enough to fire some few keywords on a search engine. Even leas advanced search engines found those sites. Google beat them adding some kind of authority but at the end the authority is gamed. Well content sites giving a s*t to SEO remain under layers and layer of dust.

I think pinning all of this on Google is unfair. They're part of it, but Reddit/Twitter/Facebook is every bit as complicit. Honestly, I think most of what's changed is our collective web-usage habits.

In my experience researching ways of building different and better discovery tools, the ice-berg of stuff that you'll virtually never find on Google/Facebook/Reddit/Twitter runs extremely deep, and is often much more interesting.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#18

Post by samsquire »

It's interesting: the modern web packages up web design so that every facebook, Wikipedia or Instragram feed looks the same. The design is done for you.

The geocities approach was that everyone creates their own site design with an editor, which was actually pretty good and effective. There were many website where you could create your own website, such as maxpages and xpages.

They would let you create pages on your site and link to other pages. There was a lot of funky pages out there.

Maybe people decided they don't want to do design anymore?

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#19

Post by johnchristopher »

wslh wrote: post #13
onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

The problem now is finding interesting content, in the recent past it was enough to fire some few keywords on a search engine. Even leas advanced search engines found those sites. Google beat them adding some kind of authority but at the end the authority is gamed. Well content sites giving a s*t to SEO remain under layers and layer of dust.

> The problem now is finding interesting content, in the recent past it was enough to fire some few keywords on a search engine.

But it's still enough to subscribe to some newsletters or reddit or listapart of the decade, etc. It's really not far away.

Now the problem is turbulence.org. Man, that hurts.

Re: The unbearable sameness of the modern web

#20

Post by xwolfi »

uonpopular_th wrote: post #15
onion2k wrote: post #6

If you think the web is boring now it's because you stopped surfing the web, not because people stopped making exciting and innovative websites. That isn't meant as a criticism; people's priorities change and we do different stuff. I still find the web wildly exciting after 30 years of using it because I still seek out interesting things on it... Tell me this looks like every other website: https://www.anumberfromthe…

The web is boring now because everyone interesting is banned by bland mediocrities. If you don't follow the current thing to the letter every major social media platform - bar twitter for the last two months - would remove you from circulation pretty much instantly. The only people who agree with everything that is popular right now are the ones incapable of thinking. Ergo a chat bot trained on old forum data seems m…

"every major social network" is a very recent sub continent on the internet and didnt replace most of it.

I find reddit super exciting as well, it's THE place to talk quickly with random english speakers and I wish that existed when I was a french kids pinging randos on ICQ...

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