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Where Have All the Websites Gone?

fromjason.xyz

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Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#141

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #64
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…

I think this is a consequence of elite takeover of the internet. The culture you describe still exists, but it's largely found in places considered unsavory and uncouth by mainstream organizations.

[deleted]

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#142

Post by pjc50 »

bheadmaster wrote: post #120
krapp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's all you've been doing. But 4chan wears its infamy on its sleeve with pride (usually white pride.) The Alfred E. Neuman shtick of disaffected bemusement was stale even when Mad was published on dead trees. But go ahead and take the last laugh. You're being neither clever nor insightful here.

> Yes, that's all you've been doing. No, in the comment you've originally replied to I have clearly stated a possible explanation of why 4chan has a bad reputation. Please refrain from pointless "no u" comments, and attack my arguments instead. > But 4chan wears its infamy on its sleeve with pride (usually white pride.) 4chan is not an entity onto itself - it is composed of many individuals, that was the whole point…

But you can still post racism inside /b/?

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#143

Post by ImHereToVote »

klibertp wrote: post #136
keiferski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As sad as it is, video is already a preferred and main content format for most people. It always was. The closer to reality, the more engaging [EDIT: and easier to digest] the content. We had some text renaissance due to technical limitations, but that's over already. Beginner programmers now routinely shun written content in favor of video - how contradictory is that? But that's how it is right now. Writing as a mod…

I wouldn't be surprised if we just had a AI "assistant", or "friend". That would explain things for you if they need explaining. Like who to vote for, or what brand of stimulant to buy. The "friend" that vibes with you best would be the one you trust the most. Assuming corporations would be interested to cater to a bunch of unemployables that is.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#144

Post by ben_w »

keiferski wrote: post #101
ben_w wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't really read as the default anymore, in the sense of reading longform blog posts/articles/newspapers Did they ever? I grew up with newspapers, but adults back then were saying much the same then just with books as their example of "things kids don't read these days"[0], to the extent that my mum decided she ought to bribe me to read more[1]. But I also remember reading some claim that most people back the…

Yes, they did, even if they were reading pulp novels and not classic literature.

I am the "they" in the case of last generations' "kids these days".

What "kids these days" do and don't do has always been a subject of parental concern, but the reality is that people aren't a homogenous group, and being an adult makes you more aware of people who grow up differently than you did.

Just as my mum was concerned about my reading habits (she probably saw a headline about it), so too are you concerned about the current generation's.

My generation was all over the place, and so is today's. The top readers of my generation read widely, most adults when I was a kid didn't read more than the headline; The top readers of the current generation read widely, most adults today don't read more than the headline… and even here, we get comments where people clearly comment without having read the link.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#147

Post by mcv »

maigret wrote: post #88
ok_dad wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's interesting because, at the time of Web 2, it was not only the "social media" proposition the only one, but also AJAX as well as more Javascript-driven websites (with more interaction potential). It was also the time of widgets and iframes, where all kinds of interesting 3rd party integrations appeared, like the bookmarklets (remember Yahoo Pipes, netvibes, RSS?). Unfortunately, the seed of advertising pretty mu…

This exactly. And getting content from third party sites dynamically. The classic example was having a Google Maps thing on your site where you'd show your, or even yet another party's data on a map. There was increasing amounts of data becoming available, apis opening up, governments releasing data sets. Combining all of that into something interesting, that was the real promise of web 2.0.

And then everybody started using that to add trackers and push ads.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#148

Post by mcv »

andrepd wrote: post #134
mcv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>TikTok isn't really fundamentally different from the stuff we consider web2, is it? Yes , it is. It's only superficially similar (technically "user-generated" content). It's a qualitative difference. The fundamental difference is human-curated vs algorithmic. You go on youtube or instagram or tiktok and all you see is what the algorithm pushes: usually the shittiest most junk content imaginable. It's a qualitative d…

But what about this is TikTok specific? Google and Facebook have done the exact same thing for ages.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#149

Post by mrkramer »

aethertron wrote: post #140
mrkramer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A personal site is a lonely place. That's why blogs, after an initial burst of creative energy, languish. People nowadays seeking online to fulfil their social inclinations go elsewhere, to the platforms better optimised to harness that social energy. A personal site or blog might be a lonely place in the early days but then came comments section and people started discussing your articles but then came the question…

The advent of commenting did mitigate the lonesomeness of independent blogging. Then social media sapped away much of that social energy, returning blogging to its natural state of solitude. Bloggers can try to nurture community, but it's a hard task. Maybe the advent of reader-funded blogging will re-energise the practice. I hope it will. Disqus seems good on paper. Seems something like Disqus is in a position to fa…

>The advent of commenting did mitigate the lonesomeness of independent blogging. Then social media sapped away much of that social energy, returning blogging to its natural state of solitude. Bloggers can try to nurture community, but it's a hard task. Maybe the advent of reader-funded blogging will re-energise the practice. I hope it will.

Web blogging was fragmented across independent web sites, Blogger and walled gardens like Tumblr, Medium and Twitter and it couldn't thrive on all of them and at the end it didn't thrive on any of them. The best solution is open web and that is independent web sites. Open web provides you freedom to customize whatever you want and you can play with Atom, RSS, comments section etc. Some people are not tech savvy enough to blog but Blogger seems like a good solution because it is easy to use and it is open but unfortunately Google didn't invest in it for years and will probably shut it down sooner or later.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#150

Post by piva00 »

bluetomcat wrote: post #61
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…

The web of today has evolved to a product placement platform. It's optimised for finding quick up-to-date reviews of the next laptop you're considering buying. Old content becomes irrelevant and flows to the sewage pipe into oblivion. Social media users are building their "personal brand" and value proposition to their next employer/business partner.

I've just finished reading Yanis Varoufakis' "Technofeudalism" and it was a much better read than I expected. I'm still unsure if his central thesis will materialise but he does make good points on how Big Tech basically transformed "Internet One" (the one we fondly remember from the 90s-early 2000s) into a internet of fiefdoms, where each Big Tech have tried to corner their own land to extract rent from.

It's the exact feeling I get from the internet today, we have lost the interesting content being put out in a decentralised manner, the quirky websites, the passionate community ones for product reviews (like DPReview), everything has become commercialised, lots of blogs are just fronts for some brand/company/individual trying to peddle their own brand through visibility.

It's just sad.

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