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The "Cheap" Web

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Re: The "Cheap" Web

#51

Post by Semaphor »

majewsky wrote: post #45
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.

Yes, there are different ways to subscribe. And again, I find it extremely weird to be supposed to keep paying indefinitely because you keep using something you bought.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#52

Post by [deleted] »

graypegg wrote: post #32
surprisetalk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! I added it.

In case you're maybe interested, I wrote up a little thing about how I think of accessible interfaces and designing for them: https://graypegg.com/2023/11/25/the-private-definition-of-ac... Edit: decided to post it here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38683774

[deleted]

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#53

Post by surprisetalk »

danielvaughn wrote: post #47

That comment about a "simple markup language" is interesting - anyone know what OP is referring to? They mentioned they're attempting to build one.

OP here!

I've got a few different competing ideas at various stages of development.

One idea builds on the programming language I'm building. I am growing more doubtful that it's going to provide the beginner-friendly experience I yearn for. It might be as easy as Elm one day, but that's not good enough for grandma.

[1] https://scrapscript.org

Another idea is like "markdown, but with a grid model". That one also does not feel very good right now.

I've also been toying around with something called "BYOD" (bring your own data), where you stitch things together in a simple layout format. This ends up feeling like powerpoint via plaintext, and surprisingly pleasant.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#54

Post by devinprater »

surprisetalk wrote: post #29
graypegg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

role="presentation" will remove it from the a11y tree! Easy fix. Most browsers will notice the characters in the element are not human readable and make some tweaks to make "heartheartheartheartheartheartheartheart" less likely though, even in the current version!

Thank you! I added it.

Thank you!

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#55

Post by axblount »

Has there been a serious attempt to define an html/css subset that achieves these kinds of goals? Something that a mere mortal could implement and would cover the vast majority of web designs?

I understand the urge to throw out the old and replace it with a new system, but that would be a huge blow to accessiblilty and adoption.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#56

Post by graypegg »

varispeed wrote: post #48
surprisetalk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

YES. I think it's this unique form of after thought, where people imagine accessibility as a "score" that you can "increase". The web developer lowest-common-denominator cares about it, but only at this weird surface level. More aria tags = more accessibility points. It becomes this weird game where we end up with insanely noisy markup, which creates a horrible described interface for anyone actually using assistive technology.

It's an interface like any other. We'd be weirded out if designers graded their screen specs as "visual" enough. More pixels are required in this area, think of our screen users! They need more pixels!

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#57

Post by toastal »

This is why we should be using decentralized XMPP servers to chat since they actually run on potato hardware unlike other chat options.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#58

Post by JAlexoid »

culi wrote: post #15
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #10

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

> buy used clothes but think nothing of paying $15 for a coffee at hipsterCafe The funny thing is Starbucks is by far the most expensive and crap quality coffee you can get most anywhere. "hipsterIndependentCafe" is consistently cheaper and better if you're a coffee snob. Also people like me prefer to buy used as much as possible not to save money but to reduce waste. The romantics amongst us also prefer to have our…

Offtopic - but that is wildly untrue.(for the US, at least)

Starbucks makes consistently good espresso. The amount of times I had - "oh, this hipster cafe is number one in the area" to just go dump the coffee and dip into Starbucks - is very high.

But going back to the topic - the consistency of Starbucks and the inconsistency of coffee shops (even in places like NYC) is reminiscent of why we gravitated to repeatable designs that we see today.

The visually appealing websites, that are not hard to read is "Starbucks". Be it visually "extravagant"(TheVerge) or simple(Yahoo Finance) they are fairly standard... these follow time proven visual standards set out by printed magazine, books and newspapers.

This potato.cheap website is a pain to read. Hard to focus on the message and the text is way too clumped. So are many of the sites it lists as examples.

HN is barebones Starbucks, not a pointlessly overbearing hipster cafe.

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#59

Post by cxr »

anon25783 wrote: post #42
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 lettin…

Ironic take for a comment that exists only as a consequence of what started out as someone complaining about how boring other people's websites look; there's no way out of this—either you agree with the ability to criticize, in which case mine is fair, or you disagree, in which case it's not but then yours isn't either and neither you nor anyone else should bother yourselves or others about the sameness of anyone's websites (instead, focus on not going to the ones that bother you so much in their sameness).

(And choosing to read my comment as an "authoritarian" imposition on "independent webdevs"—not actually stated anywhere? How presumptuous.)

Re: The "Cheap" Web

#60

Post by toss1 »

Semaphor wrote: post #51
majewsky wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, there are different ways to subscribe. And again, I find it extremely weird to be supposed to keep paying indefinitely because you keep using something you bought.

It's not to keep using something you bought.

It's because you value the artist, and want to support them continuing to make new things that you'll like in the future.

Rapidly changing economic structures can strip away sufficient economic reward via the ordinary way of 'purchasing' things, such that continuing to make them is no longer viable. E.g., Spotify paying artists $3.3 per one thousand streams, but almost no one buying CDs.

They are proposing ways — in this environment — to direct more of the funds directly to the creator, so that they can keep creating. But if continued creation is not of value to you, you are free to skip it.

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