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Splitting the Web

ploum.net

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Re: Splitting the Web

#31

Post by Kovah »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

> It feels like everyone is now choosing its side. You can’t stay in the middle anymore. You are either dedicating all your CPU cycles to run JavaScript tracking you or walking away from the big monopolies. You are either being paid to build huge advertising billboards on top of yet another framework or you are handcrafting HTML. Is that happening? I feel like there's a ton of middle ground, and it's only ever expand…

I thought that there must be a middle ground after reading that part, too. But we, the people who know, run and support that cozy web, are actually a minority compared to the mass of internet users. It's not a good comparison, but my family and friends know absolutely nothing about all the things that make up the cozy web. Dozens of people and literally nobody knows what RSS, Mastodon or blogs are. When asked about privacy, nobody cares. Nobody except my brother uses ad blockers. Just a few examples.

From my experience and what I know about web users in general, this seem to scale to the whole internet. Like 90% of the people know nothing about "our cozy web" and don't care about anything else than the commercial web.

Re: Splitting the Web

#32

Post by JohnFen »

carlossouza wrote: post #29

Do you guys think the non-commercial web will ever achieve critical mass to tilt the scale in its favor and spark a chain reaction to drive flocks of people out of the commercial web? A refreshing thing about the non-commercial web is the fact that it is not trying to monopolize my attention and not trying to hard-sell me anything. More and more, I see people complaining about the big tech services... but that's a qu…

> Do you guys think the non-commercial web will ever achieve critical mass

I don't know. I rather doubt it. Personally, I've given up on that as a goal -- the masses can do what they like. My goal is more about self-preservation: finding those spaces that are beneficial to me.

What I think is actually happening is that the web is balkanizing, as people who feel as I do build spaces that serve their needs.

Re: Splitting the Web

#33

Post by hanniabu »

carlossouza wrote: post #29

Do you guys think the non-commercial web will ever achieve critical mass to tilt the scale in its favor and spark a chain reaction to drive flocks of people out of the commercial web? A refreshing thing about the non-commercial web is the fact that it is not trying to monopolize my attention and not trying to hard-sell me anything. More and more, I see people complaining about the big tech services... but that's a qu…

That's what the web3 movement is about but everyone is too caught up in bias based on false narratives

Re: Splitting the Web

#34

Post by johnnyworker »

How about a web ring? A manifesto? A good name for it, or several? By that I mean things to make this distributed discontent more discoverable, and more importantly, all those neat little tools and protocols that achieve great things with a fraction of the resources while keeping the autonomy of the user intact.

We also need (more, discoverable) beginner level material that explains the beauty and potential of the web and many of its good parts (there are so many!). People who are as excited about the web and DIY as the Veritasium guy is about physics and math, and as talented at showing it. I certainly would tune in, and spread the word.

Wouldn't it be great if we could leave something to future generations, like people left us diaries and books? If we just keep shoving our "content" and personal musings into those silos, chances are very good they will get basically nothing. A big fat hole, compared to what could be have if we actually cared about our files and bytes, and got the average person to care about theirs too. I consider that literacy in the digital age. You don't stop at 20% literacy, that would be appalling.

And I posit it's not actually hard to become an adult, it's way harder not to. As long as you don't exercise autonomy it seems more and more daunting and hard, if you do, it becomes easier. I think the same applies here. There's just all these swarms of middlemen telling people it's all impossibly hard and dangerous (while they shovel on layers of complexity to make it so). They say don't bother walking, walking is hard, and offer to carry you. That goes well for a while, until you depend on them, until the idea of walking positively scares you. Then they start carrying you where it serves them.

Re: Splitting the Web

#35

Post by at-fates-hands »

Kiro wrote: post #18

Reverting back to phone calls and visiting physical stores again? This person is living my nightmare.

My kids are teenagers who have stopped texting almost altogether. They do more facetime and other video conferencing. When I need to get a hold of either, I actually call. Texting stopped working years ago as a means to get a hold of them.

Both are going to be seniors and have told me all their friends have all but abandoned texting and besides facetiming, they spend a LOT of time on conference calling when they're mobile gaming.

It would appear communications continue to evolve over time from generation to generation. I thought once texting took hold, phone calls would become obsolete. I guess not. There's a lot more interesting things they do with tech these days, but I was fascinated with how their communication habits have changes so rapidly even in their own short lifetime.

Re: Splitting the Web

#36

Post by doublepg23 »

the_gipsy wrote: post #20
superkuh wrote: post #19

>People who try alternative networks such as Mastodon or, God forbid, Gemini. People who poke fun at the modern web by building true HTML and JavaScript-less pages. Mastodon is actually part of the "HTTP as a secure application delivery protocol" and is no longer part of the "HTTP as website document delivery" team. To me that seems the biggest split: self contained application versus hyperlinked documents.

I am ignorant of the underlying mastodon protocol, but couldn't there be a (mostly) HTML-only frontend for mastodon, or something like that? I really hated that about twitter too, that for reading a goddamn SMS-lenghty tiny text it couldn't just have been "prerendered" on the server, no, you have to fetch a million things and watch different spinners before you get at it.

GoToSocial exposes an API for basic frontends pretty much. https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial

Re: Splitting the Web

#38

Post by deepsun »

> I’ve never received so many emails commenting my blog posts.

I've always wondered if there's is an easy way to have a pre-moderated, owner-sorted list of comments section.

Emails are private, but sometimes users can say something interesting for others to see. And I don't mind if website owner deletes/edits/down-sorts my comments -- it's their web property.

PS: If only that page had a Like button... :)

Re: Splitting the Web

#40

Post by potta_coffee »

johnnyworker wrote: post #34

How about a web ring? A manifesto? A good name for it, or several? By that I mean things to make this distributed discontent more discoverable, and more importantly, all those neat little tools and protocols that achieve great things with a fraction of the resources while keeping the autonomy of the user intact. We also need (more, discoverable) beginner level material that explains the beauty and potential of the we…

Discoverability for the kind of content I want to see is completely broken. I can barely find anything on the web anymore. Google gives me Reddit, Facebook and a million crappy review sites.
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