The "Cheap" Web

The other day, I was talking to my daughter about where she might like to study in future. We happen to went to a big University for some showcase event and I asked her if she liked that one. She replied, “No! Their logo is in Comic Sans.”

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#5

Post by globalise83 » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

throwaway81523 wrote: post #2

Is that the Comic Sans I've heard so much about?

"Playpen Sans"

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#6

Post by Brajeshwar » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

cardinalbug wrote: post #3

[flagged]

I usually tend to use Reader mode in Safari or ReaderMode[1] in Google Chrome. In-fact, I have set Reader Mode as default for a few common website such as that of PG's.

1. https://readermode.io/

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#7

Post by cxr » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

The thing that makes me disagree with proponents of the "smol"/"cheap"/etc Web is their totally misguided insistence on personal webpages as a sui generis medium for self-expression wrt layout and styling.

> Until we adopt simple and stable building materials, all websites will continue to look the same.

Yeah, big deal. Who cares if websites look the same? Wait, let me put that another way: we should care whether websites look the same in the sense that more of them should look similar to one another than they do today—namely, they should look how you and I (the readers) wish for them to look for our own comfort and convenience—which means fewer dark starry sky backgrounds, fewer text drop shadows and typefaces reminiscent of comic book speech bubbles, and fewer distracting marquees. Way less kitsch, not more.

HN, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, SMS, etc. all have a limited range of expression through form. Somehow we get by. Completely dissimilar books look a lot more "the same" than websites do, and that's not a bad thing. You never see book authors complaining about control over the printed page the way that you see self-styled web designers insisting on their manifest destiny over the user's viewport for the purposes of self-expression. Webdevs need to get over themselves, and the wider world needs to stop letting them get by with (or encouraging) this kind of narcissism.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#8

Post by infotainment » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

Love it — I think something of value was lost when we collectively decided in 2005 that everyone’s page should look exactly the same (i.e. TheFacebook™ profiles)

Sadly that, combined with the changes Google made to deprioritize results from personal sites like these, all but destroyed these neat bespoke pages.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#9

Post by mcluck » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

cxr wrote: post #7

The thing that makes me disagree with proponents of the "smol"/"cheap"/etc Web is their totally misguided insistence on personal webpages as a sui generis medium for self-expression wrt layout and styling. > Until we adopt simple and stable building materials, all websites will continue to look the same. Yeah, big deal. Who cares if websites look the same? Wait, let me put that another way: we should care whether web…

Authors like Mark Z. Danielewski do more with the layout in their books than most and I love them for it. I like seeing people try out different ideas and do things that might be considered less-than-ideal to view

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#10

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

the whole cheap/small web thing has me thinking of those people who buy used clothes but think nothing of paying $15 for a coffee at hipsterCafe. something virtue signally about it.

maybe it's the "solarpunk philosophy" and the "synthesize serendipity"-ies or quoting steve jobs, one of the biggest a*holes in the history of tech (imo).

although i agree strongly with everything here https://potato.cheap/#cheap