A simple web we own

Potatoverse is a great name :)) BTW do you remember Sandstorm.io?

Thanks cap'n-py. Yeah, I love Sandstorm. My goal is to be more portable, lighter, and a 'download binary and run' kind of tool. There are also other attempts around what I call the 'packaging with Docker' approach (Coolify, etc.), which are more attempts at packaging existing apps. But my approach—the platform—gives a bunch of stuff you can use to make apps faster, but you have to bend to its idiosyncrasies. In turn, you do not need a beefy home lab to run it (not everyone is a tinkerer). It's more focused, so it will be easier for the end user running it than for the developer.

This is only half a thought.

The current wave of AI agents is diminishing the value of identity as a DDOS or content-moderation signal. The formula until now included bot = bad, but unless your service wants to exclude everyone using OpenClaw and friends, that's no longer a valid heuristic.

If identity is no longer a strong signal, then the internet must move away from CAPTCHAs and logins and reputation, and focus more on the proposed content or action instead. Which might not be so bad. After all, if I read a thought-provoking, original, enriching comment on HN, do I really care if it was actually written by a dog?

We might finally be getting close to https://xkcd.com/810/.

One more half thought: what if the solution to the Sybil problem is deciding that it's not a problem? Go ahead and spin up your bot network, join the party. If we can design systems that assign zero value to uniqueness and require originality or creativity for a contribution to matter, then successful Sybil "attacks" are no longer attacks, but free work donated by the attacker.

> great ease of use

Apple stuff is a nightmare of dark patterns and user-hostile idiocy.

Maybe it's easy if you have Stockholm syndrome and have internalized all the arcane gestures, icons and bug avoidance patterns.

The average normie has no clue, though. (This is borne from experience, I have like 8 iPhones in the immediate family among children and seniors.)

As the author of a content management system I made with the idea to democratize internet content creation, I've had a lot of the same thoughts that the author brings up here. I've always thought that even learning Markdown was a bridge to far when it comes to empowering non-technical users however. In my experience it's best just to supply tooling similar to Word where you have buttons for things like lists and bolding. Using Markdown as the format itself is something I will agree with though.

Another thought I had is that local AI could most definitely play a part in helping non-technical users create the kind of content they want. If your CMS gives you a GPT-like chat window that allows a non-technical user to restyle the page as they like, or do things like make mass edits - then I think that is something that could help some of the issues mentioned here.