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Where Have All the Websites Gone?

fromjason.xyz

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Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#51

Post by lurker616 »

dt3ft wrote: post #6
nickweb wrote: post #3

I think that as the author notes, we have gone. And I think it’s because we grew up. We don’t have the spare time like we used to, which, inevitably means we don’t access same sites, depriving them of visitors and relevant revenue. We’ve gone.

We’ve gone, but replacement never came. They got stuck on twitter, discord, tiktok, twitch, snapchat. Websites are difficult to build for the average Joe. Having a personal website doesn’t seem to be cool anymore. The number of followers on platform xyz seems to be the thing today. Lets hope the trend dies out and personal websites become cool again.

It's like saying, I hope the new pop music trends that all the kids are listening to dies out, and 80s rock becomes cool again. It just isn't gonna happen.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#52

Post by ok_dad »

mcv wrote: post #38
bdcravens wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web 3 as you described it never existed. I think Web 3 is more the TikTok and other mass content tools. Still dependent on their parties, but it's shifted to more access to rich content and more access, rather than the curated pinhole view of "posts", especially when it comes to live feeds.

I would really like web3 to go back to distributed networks. Fediverse and all that. I guess cryptocurrencies fit in there too; I guess web3 would have its light and dark side. But decentralisation would be a nice theme. TikTok isn't really fundamentally different from the stuff we consider web2, is it? (I actually think imposing these artificial "generations" on web evolution is silly, but if we're going to do it, I…

I think Web N isn't about the actual tech being used, it's about the way the tech is being used and how it interacts with the real world and our society. Web 1 was HTML informational web sites, maybe some chat rooms and games here and there but not much affect on the real world. Web 2 was/is the "web app" where you can transact various business online, and group into communities and stuff and which is well integrated into our lives. Web 3, I think, is currently being formed and I have no idea what it is, but whomever can figure that out will be the first nrillionaire or whatever. The tech itself is just all the same if/else statements in a different order.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#53

Post by INTPenis »

I think it's just numbers. Us internet users used to be a minority, and in a very short time a huge influx of new users came online through apps.

So relatively if you look at the numbers no one is using websites anymore, but I'd be willing to bet that some of us old internet users still use the internet much as we used to.

The websites I still visit are mostly old message boards.

And of course I visit a lot of blogs but they're always linked from a message board. I don't subscribe to any blogs but that's just personal preference, I never did before either.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#54

Post by mym1990 »

yard2010 wrote: post #13
mym1990 wrote: post #5

Not only has the content become fairly centralized, many of the sites that you might go to find things like...recipes, or guides, or direction on something...are absolutely littered with ads. It is no trivial task to scroll through these metaphorical garbage cans looking for that one tidbit of information that will help you, mobile especially. And to some degree, I get it. The incentives that got is to today are all…

Tip: ublock origin on PC, vivaldi browser on android. No more ads

You're missing the forest for the trees. I don't want to download a bunch of crap so that I can avoid seeing other crap. Eventually the providers will find a way around the crap I installed with more crap, you get the idea.

It is the world we live in, dominated by advertising at every nook and cranny that is disturbing.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#55

Post by marginalia_nu »

yreg wrote: post #28
miramba wrote: post #11

I believe that there are still a lot of interesting, non-commercial websites out there. I just can‘t find them anymore. SEO dominates literally every search I try. I also tried Bing, DuckDuckGo, you.com and many more - same result. I think a search engine that excludes every website with google analytics, ad networks and amazon affiliate links would be great. Anyone know of such a thing?

> I believe that there are still a lot of interesting, non-commercial websites out there. Surely there are more than ever. Just difficult to find, as you say.

Yeah, I think it's noteworthy that the times in history we view as high water marks in terms of personal websites are also the times in history we had really good aggregators/navigation tools for personal websites. I think in absolute terms we aren't significantly worse off than in the '90s when "surfing the web" was so big there were printed magazines dedicated to the passtime.

On the flip side, it doesn't matter how many great websites there are if you can't find them. If we want a thriving ecosystem of smaller and more personal websites, then it needs discovery tools.

My efforts with Marginalia Search, wiby.me, ooh.directory, neocities; it's all a decent start, but I think we can do even better.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#56

Post by jl6 »

dikei wrote: post #15

Isn't this how we classify web "generation"? * Web 1.0: independent websites, self-maintained, hard * Web 2.0: hosted platforms like blogs and social networks, easy, but rely on providers * Web 3.0: promise to free users from the platform providers but are mostly crypto scam currently.

No, Web 2.0 was coined mostly off the back of XMLHttpRequest which enabled reloadless interactivity.

Then Web 3.0 was coined by a bunch of crypto grifters who tried to inherit credibility by extending the x.0 numbering scheme.

It's all rather meaningless. See also: Industry 4.0.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#57

Post by robertlagrant »

yreg wrote: post #42
Stranger43 wrote: post #25

It feels like the web grew up into an bitter old fart who takes everything way to seriously. What's missing is the culture of "anonymity" where everyone was pretty much just a screen name and people did not give that much care to their long term reputations and the fall from that more or less started with facebooks real name policy, or rather when facebook stopped being an glorified phonebook and started being an con…

> What's missing is the culture of "anonymity" where everyone was pretty much just a screen name It seems that the society at large wants this. 4chan has a horrible reputation in the outside world. Reddit's reputation is improving hand in hand with the tightening of their content policies.

Their reputations are mediated by news sources, though. It's hard to know what's real and what's the result of 500 news articles gradually shading in emotional responses over these websites most people know little about.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#58

Post by ImHereToVote »

keiferski wrote: post #36
ImHereToVote wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video? How quaint. Why not simply translate the latent representation of concepts.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to communicate here, but: the average person likes watching/listening to other people talk. Maybe the über cyborg AI gods of the future will communicate directly with mental models, but for everyone else, the only thing that is better than video is probably a hologram, which is basically the same thing taken to the next level.

Just commenting on your timelines. They are a bit on the short side considering the rapid pace of technology.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#59

Post by keiferski »

pjc50 wrote: post #44
keiferski wrote: post #20

I share the author's feelings on the old web, but I think this misses a fundamental point about younger people: they don't really read as the default anymore, in the sense of reading longform blog posts/articles/newspapers. You could blame this on the impatience of youth, but I think it's actually more of a fundamental shift of media formats. Websites-as-default have gone away because browsing the web (i.e. reading s…

I'm slightly alarmed by this, not just because of the decline of literacy and the slower speed of transmission, but the stronger charisma effects through voice seem to me to be a driver of problems. That seems to be why there are so many terrible influencer cult leaders.

Part of me has the same concerns, as I love books and think reading is critical. However, I also realize that reading and books are a technology that has developed through history, like anything else, and that a yet-unseen format of the future (that incorporates video, text, audio, etc.) may be more effective than reading. I don't actually think reading is a great way of communication, it's more just evolutionarily fit compared to speech.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#60

Post by mym1990 »

bdcravens wrote: post #19

I don't see the TikTokization of the world as necessarily bad - it creates a world of fast publishing with first-class tools, no nerd gatekeeping required.

It also creates a world of nearly unlimited consumption, and the majority of the userbase is on the consumption side, not the publishing side.
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