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An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

public.monster

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Re: An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

#11

Post by GaryBluto »

This is an homage to the 90s only in the sense that public HTML hosting was more popular in the 90s. Everything about this seems like a modern project (in both design and ideals) with a very inaccurate "retro" coat of paint.

- Site makes use of HTML5 and modern JS. Why bemoan modern frameworks and then use modern, bloated elements?

- Why is there a completely modern register/sign in section in the middle of the home page? Why do young people think every website used to have a marquee? Why does it look like a facsimile of a borderless Windows 95 window? Why the emojis everywhere? Why is there a text shadow effect done with CSS when the 90s way would be to use an image of the text with the effect already replied, with ALT text for text browsers? So many odd design decisions.

- Long content moderation policy talking about how the site is for "Marxist, Communist, Anarchist, Feminist, Postcolonial, Abolitionist, Racial Justice, Queer, Hacker, and Pirate cultures." and how things the site owner doesn't like will be removed.

- The about page looks written with ChatGPT. "That's it. No webpack. No npm install. No 'building for production.', Just HTML. Just vibes." It then goes on to say that they only have "Passwordless authentication (because it's 2025, not 1995)"

This looks to be yet another project fawning over a time and place that the creator didn't experience or have any significant understanding of whatsoever. It's one thing to look at the past with rose tinted glasses, it's another to have a completely fictionalized view of a past you have no knowledge of and then build a service around it.

Re: An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

#12

Post by c-hendricks »

zkmon wrote: post #7

What has changed now? I still upload my static web content to my ~/public_html folder on live website, using sftp. Anything wrong with that? Why people coming up with this kind of news? The other day someone was saying scripting the HTML Table element using DOM API is gone. Check internic.net landing page. Not changed in decades. You don't need to be so desperate for change.

> Please note: You are viewing archival ICANN material. Links and information may be outdated or incorrect. Visit ICANN's main website for current information.

On internic.net I was only able to find one link that linked to internic.net, and that was in big bold letters at the top.

Re: An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

#16

Post by zkmon »

c-hendricks wrote: post #12
zkmon wrote: post #7

What has changed now? I still upload my static web content to my ~/public_html folder on live website, using sftp. Anything wrong with that? Why people coming up with this kind of news? The other day someone was saying scripting the HTML Table element using DOM API is gone. Check internic.net landing page. Not changed in decades. You don't need to be so desperate for change.

> Please note: You are viewing archival ICANN material. Links and information may be outdated or incorrect. Visit ICANN's main website for current information. On internic.net I was only able to find one link that linked to internic.net, and that was in big bold letters at the top.

I was mentioning landing page. Not child pages.

Re: An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

#17

Post by rounce »

GaryBluto wrote: post #11

This is an homage to the 90s only in the sense that public HTML hosting was more popular in the 90s. Everything about this seems like a modern project (in both design and ideals) with a very inaccurate "retro" coat of paint. - Site makes use of HTML5 and modern JS. Why bemoan modern frameworks and then use modern, bloated elements? - Why is there a completely modern register/sign in section in the middle of the home…

It feels very contrived, as if someone has seen a handful of screenshots and tried to describe it to someone else, rather than a clear (or just well researched) memory of what the mindset, trends and limitations really were around web design 30 years ago.

Re: An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

#19

Post by johnxie »

I kinda smile seeing this growing up in the real public_html days… Xanga, Geocities, Angelfire, copying HTML from those old Scholastic books to make my first little interactive Pokemon map to hosting WoW guild sites, DKP boards, CS 1.6 servers.

Feels like we’re back again with vibe-coding, app builders, v0, bolt, lovable, all of it. The AI infra even feels familiar. End users getting back the kind of control we had in the public_html days via cPanel shared-hosting, VPS era. And for backend, it’s Supabase or Neon / Postgres now instead of phpMyAdmin and MySQL.

Full circle~

Re: An Homage to 90s –/Public_HTML Hosting

#20

Post by tricknik »

GaryBluto wrote: post #11

This is an homage to the 90s only in the sense that public HTML hosting was more popular in the 90s. Everything about this seems like a modern project (in both design and ideals) with a very inaccurate "retro" coat of paint. - Site makes use of HTML5 and modern JS. Why bemoan modern frameworks and then use modern, bloated elements? - Why is there a completely modern register/sign in section in the middle of the home…

Hey Gary,,I'm Dmytri, no issue with any of the points, but I most definitely was there in the 90s, see dmytri.to, this is just a fun project for me because people still need easy hosting and I've been helping with that for decades.
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