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Where Have All the Websites Gone?

fromjason.xyz

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Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#351

Post by piperswe »

didntcheck wrote: post #111
Whoppertime wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is where we get hybrids. Topic specific wikis. If I want to know about quests in a Fallout game I check one wiki if I want to know about alternate universe Lex Luthors I check another wiki.

And of course they themselves have experienced the same phenomenon, with 90% of fandom wikis being absorbed into the blob that is "Fandom (tm)". It's turned fan wikis from what felt like niche non-commercial projects into yet another corporate entity trying to sell me more Marvel movies

There's been a growing pushback against Fandom (tm), with contributors to quite a few Fandom(tm) wikis moving back to a self-hosted MediaWiki instance. The Minecraft Wiki (https://minecraft.wiki) is a major example.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#352

Post by piperswe »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #261
Ellipsis753 wrote: post #175

My cousin runs a very small home-made html blog. I really like it and it gives me that early 2000s nostalgia. I'm sure he'd be psyched if some people here were to read it. https://deadvey.com https://deadvey.com/blog/index.html https://deadvey.com/blog/feed.xml

Sorry. No. Tell him something about ergonomics and bad contrast. That color-scheme is a NO-GO.

I somehow suspect that the poor contrast and readability are part of the aesthetic he's going for.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#353

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

piperswe wrote: post #352
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. No. Tell him something about ergonomics and bad contrast. That color-scheme is a NO-GO.

I somehow suspect that the poor contrast and readability are part of the aesthetic he's going for.

That's all well and good for him, but not for me.

First impression of that site: WTF?! Trying to scroll, have a bright red scroll-bar. WADDYA DOIN' WIFF MY BROWSA, DUDE?!

Trying to make sense of the text, having to squint. Switching off uBlock (benefit of doubt, etc.), to see if it messes with some JS/CSS. No joy.

Don't care.

Tab closed.

Done.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#354

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"Because it's still out there, we just have to find it."

With search engines operated by advertising companies, or companies that profit from advertising. there is an incentive to actively prevent discovery and hide what is not profitable.

Search "too fast" on Google and draw a ban. Even when this is public information being searched; it does not belong to Google.

Facilitating discovery by web users is against Big Tech interests.

Big Tech will do the "discovery"; relax and consume what is presented. Want to go deep into results. Not so fast.

According to Big Tech, what's actually online is not your business. Only what Big Tech wants to show you matters.

What's actually online beyond this might be mostly garbage,^1 but the public is actively prevented from discovering that fact.

At least, they won't discover it via Big Tech intermediation.

Maybe it's not all garbage. But how would anyone know. The advertising company sits in the middle, controlling what can and cannot be discovered.

1. Not advertising garbage but another kind that has no utility for advertising.

Don't believe me. Read some zone files, starting with the com.zone. There are milllions of websites that have become all but impossible to discover via Big Tech intermediation of the web.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#355

Post by genewitch »

dividefuel wrote: post #247
pksebben wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stumbleupon! What a gleaming ray of sunshine in the vast landscape of the web! I agree with you that it couldn't survive today, but I often wonder why . If I had access to stumbleupon as it was, I would absolutely be using it - but when I try to think about how to reimplement it there are a couple sticking points that I don't have any solutions to: - Engagement: SU lived and died on it's users, a paragon of the crowd…

I think there are many reasons why SU would fail, but the biggest to me is that so much content is that so much content is produced just for the major social media sites. SU wouldn't offer net value over just using those apps. For example, consider what the UX on mobile would be like. A modern SU would often send you to the major social media sites since that's where the content is. But you'd either constantly encoun…

Did you use StumbleUpon? There was very little overlap, it was a completely different part of the internet; more actual "web" than "just uses the internet for transport"

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#356

Post by genewitch »

ipaddr wrote: post #229
nonethewiser wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Stumbleupon clone's aren't popular because there really just isnt a lot of demand for them. Stumbleupon clones already exist. People generally prefer social media and in this case I'd say Reddit more specifically. Here is one I found with a 5 second search: https://cloudhiker.net/ It works great. It's fun. Hopefully people will enjoy it. But I dont think we need to make excuses for why its not more popular.

That looks great. Is there a list of these types of sites?

An aggregator aggregator? Then you run into issues of "what constitutes an aggregator site" coupled with "... that deserves being on the list".

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#357

Post by _smfg »

blueridge wrote: post #321
_smfg wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is kind of hilarious because I felt similar feelings which is why I took down my site!

Oh! I remember reading your "On second thought, I don't like blogging" post and nodding along. I think I've linked it a few times elsewhere in HN comments. We are aligned!

I'm quite surprised and honored that my words resonated :) since that post I've been living a more quiet, private, and a bit more happier life.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#358

Post by webworker »

gmiller123456 wrote: post #208

I've made the decision to give up app development and go back to plain old webapps. Google's requirement to update the "targetsdk" for every app appears to be a "war on free", as only people making money off their apps are willing to jump through such hoops. I expect the noose to tighten even more as more app developers comply. So rather than fight it, I decided to throw in the towel early. I expect Google will try t…

This is where I'm at, too. The overhead of getting a mobile app up and distributed is extremely heavy and distracting.

I have taken a look at hyperview and tried it out. That's probably the only way I'll ever do another mobile app.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#359

Post by nvm0n2 »

Dah00n wrote: post #338
nvm0n2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes they're put there by the hosting provider. The blog author doesn't get the money, it all goes towards hosting costs. Which are, you know, real. Running a blog costs continuous money even if you don't have many visitors because of constant crawling, spam attacks, the need to have a machine online 24/7 etc.

>constant crawling, spam attacks It seems a bit wild if those two could make any difference in costs. I mean, if you have one visit a month and pay per megabyte then sure, Google would maybe show up in stats, but otherwise?

It's not uncommon for lightly trafficked sites to have 90% or more of their resources taken up by bots of various kinds. Remember Google isn't the only search engine and there are many crawlers that aren't search engines at all.

Re: Where Have All the Websites Gone?

#360

Post by lowq »

rozap wrote: post #269
nonethewiser wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Stumbleupon clone's aren't popular because there really just isnt a lot of demand for them. Stumbleupon clones already exist. People generally prefer social media and in this case I'd say Reddit more specifically. Here is one I found with a 5 second search: https://cloudhiker.net/ It works great. It's fun. Hopefully people will enjoy it. But I dont think we need to make excuses for why its not more popular.

I agreed that I thought SU wouldn't work in today's internet, and I clicked on the cloudhiker link thinking I'd be met with SEO trash, but I ended up on this post: https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier Which was a great post and now I understand more than I did about how air filters work...more complicated than I'd thought. Maybe I should give cloudhiker a try.

I swear that IKEA filter writeup was on HN once upon a time. That or someone else's thorough analysis of the exact same appliance!
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