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The "Cheap" Web

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Re: The "Cheap" Web

#41

Post by zozbot234 »

flpm wrote: post #38

Very interesting, thanks for posting! I am not sure if the way to go is a cheap web, small web, slow web, indie web, or maybe some combination of these attributes, but something about the current web feels off, mass produced and superficial. The old sites created by people who did cool stuff just for the sake of doing it are so hard to find now. I miss them.

They're hard to find because they're not really linked anywhere. We used to have Web directories arranged by subject headings that tried to be mostly comprehensive and put some serious curation effort into that goal, such as DMOZ.org - but there's no modern equivalent to that. People like to complain about how the whole SEO issue has made search results useless as of late, but that if anything is downstream of the overall lack of manual curation.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#42

Post by anon25783 »

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…

> Webdevs need to get over themselves, and the wider world needs to stop letting them get by with (or encouraging) this kind of narcissism.

What a presumptuous statement! Authoritarian, even. It's one thing for someone else's website, such as HN, Reddit, Wikipedia, etc., to impose a homogeneous form on posts submitted by guests on the site. It's quite another thing to assert that "the wider world" should "stop letting [independent webdevs]" deviate from a similar standard of homogeneity.

If you don't like the appearance of someone else's webpage, maybe just don't go to that webpage?

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#43

Post by graypegg »

jerf wrote: post #39
graypegg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voice Over is insanely easy to work with, I recommend it to everyone I work with. I would say it takes maybe 20minutes to get a hang of the basic shortcuts and navigation modes. I've been thinking about making a "VO for Web Devs" cheat sheet at some point, would that be a useful thing for you? (Of course, I'm making assumptions about being in the apple garden.)

Well, as it happens I'm not, but I imagine it would be useful for people in general, and I'll promise you an upvote on HN if I see it. :) I imagine you can make a solid guide if you really focus it on the use case of "here's how to evaluate your site for this specific purpose".

Noted! I sadly don't have much experience with the options for windows / linux flavours, but I'm sure something like NVDA [0] could be useful for you to test these things! The idea would be to learn the tool first, (feel at least capable to open the browser from your taskbar and jump around a few tabs for example. This is generally a 20min task.) then set up a few goals to do on your site. Finding a specific page, or making an account. Even with sight, and knowledge of your site, you'll very quickly hear the odd-ball places where the descriptions give duplicated info or even false info. Just don't touch the mouse! Experience the interface, as if this was your portal into the internet.

I think I'll get moving on that cheat sheet then! Thanks eh! :)

[0] https://www.nvaccess.org/download/

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#44

Post by graypegg »

TeaDude wrote: post #24

I agree that we need a new - less crufty - standard to replace HTML/CSS/JS but there's another point which I feel has been sorely missed in previous efforts. I want a FUN standard. I want to make cool looking sites that are relatively scalable based on user hardware. Alternatives like Gopher and Gemini never really scratched that itch due to how sterile they are.

OH yeah, thank you for saying that. Gemini was a short 1 month obsession of mine. I just hit this brick wall of "... oh... this is it?".

I do think HTML is a fun standard though. There's so much "big business productization" chained to it. Web companies announce updates to frameworks as if it's an apple keynote now. I think that gives a false impression of the "bones" of the web though. HTML/CSS is still fun! :) Nothing beats the visual-focus and short lag time between code->website in browser.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#45

Post by majewsky »

Semaphor wrote: post #23

> If you are spending less than $1 per hour on your entertainment (podcasts, videos, articles, games, books, etc.), consider finding ways to support creators and the infrastructure that supports them. So I should send them extra money because I keep using it? I bought the discography of a band (0.2665 € / hour according to last.fm so far, obviously falling), should I now set up a monthly donation just because I keep…

There are other ways besides subscriptions and ownership: Patronage is a big and popular one, through platforms like Steady or Patreon, or even just direct bank transfers. Another big one is commissions, though that's usually more of a thing with artists than with musicians or videomakers.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#46

Post by anon25783 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #11
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…

You can have all web sites look the same by setting reader view as default in your browser. It is a great improvement for browsing the web, both on desktop and phone. If somebody invented a "forum view" to make all forums look the same on our browsers, then I think the circle would be complete. It shouldn't be too difficult either, since most run on similar software.

You should learn about the Gemini protocol! It's an alternative to HTTPS that uses a document markup language similar to Markdown instead of HTML, and uses a deliberately simplified, feature-frozen protocol with the explicit goal that anyone should be able to write their own Gemini browser "in a weekend". No scripting or styling support, just documents with links and images in them.

Here are some informative webpages on the topic, neither of them mine:

https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi

https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#48

Post by varispeed »

surprisetalk wrote: post #22
its-summertime wrote: post #16

"Most websites should be compatible with screenreaders", and yet, the first line of text in the website is "♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡"; With the spoken form of: "Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart Heart…

Ha! Thanks for catching that! I think that demonstrates how difficult it is to make even a simple website accessible. I assumed that since my browser's "reader mode" was all good, then screen readers would know how to parse it too. I do like the heart aesthetic, so how exactly would I make it more accessible?

The problem is that accessibility has been treated as an afterthought, so designers, UX and people crafting HTML usually are not in habit of embedding accessibility into their works. It often comes when someone disabled complaints or if there is a regulation they didn't know about and there is "oh sh..." moment where accessibility is tacked onto already done project.

So it's difficult in the sense that people don't think about it, there are not so many tutorials available and so on.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#49

Post by flpm »

zozbot234 wrote: post #41
flpm wrote: post #38

Very interesting, thanks for posting! I am not sure if the way to go is a cheap web, small web, slow web, indie web, or maybe some combination of these attributes, but something about the current web feels off, mass produced and superficial. The old sites created by people who did cool stuff just for the sake of doing it are so hard to find now. I miss them.

They're hard to find because they're not really linked anywhere. We used to have Web directories arranged by subject headings that tried to be mostly comprehensive and put some serious curation effort into that goal, such as DMOZ.org - but there's no modern equivalent to that. People like to complain about how the whole SEO issue has made search results useless as of late, but that if anything is downstream of the ov…

That's so true, it's almost like a return to the beginning (Yahoo Web Directory). We need to find a way to curate content that scales but in a way that eliminates the incentive for bad actors to try SEO-like approaches to game the process.

That feels impossible without a feasible alternative to the ad-based revenue model.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#50

Post by Semaphor »

surprisetalk wrote: post #40
Semaphor wrote: post #23

> If you are spending less than $1 per hour on your entertainment (podcasts, videos, articles, games, books, etc.), consider finding ways to support creators and the infrastructure that supports them. So I should send them extra money because I keep using it? I bought the discography of a band (0.2665 € / hour according to last.fm so far, obviously falling), should I now set up a monthly donation just because I keep…

If you get a lot of value from their music, you may want to support them via merch and concerts! I've found that "$1 per hour" is simply a good starting point for figuring out which things in my life are worth supporting. Obviously, it may be different for other people :)

Going to concerts is sadly not a "want to go" thing, but "is there anything that’s close by", and I say that as someone living in a metal country like Germany.
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