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Resurrect the Old Web

stevedylandev.bearblog.dev

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Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#151

Post by alwillis »

johnfn wrote: post #128
alwillis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really is crazy how much was lost when Apple killed Flash. Steve Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash" [1] in 2010; Flash was discontinued by Adobe in 2017. If Apple supposedly "killed" Flash, they sure took their time doing so. The iPhone had about 14% marketshare at the time, so it's not like Apple was in a commanding position to dictate terms to the industry. But if you read his letter, what he said made total s…

> Steve Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash" [1] in 2010; Flash was discontinued by Adobe in 2017. If Apple supposedly "killed" Flash, they sure took their time doing so. I’m really surprised anyone could say that. To my view, “Thoughts on Flash killed Flash” is about as true as “the sky is blue”. It’s fairly clear to me that without a strong stance, a less principled mobile OS (like Android) would have supported it, a…

> You correctly cite that iOS penetration was low at the time, but mobile Safari grew over the next few years to become the dominant web browser, and that was sufficient.

First, there's no way Flash would still be alive today; Apple might have sped up its demise but it had so many disadvantages, it was just a matter of time and it was controlled by one company.

Remember that the web standards movement was kicking into high gear around the same time; we had already dodged a bullet when Microsoft attempted to take over the web with Active X, Silverlight, JScript.

The whole point of the Web Standards movement was to get away from proprietary technologies.

> You correctly cite that iOS penetration was low at the time, but mobile Safari grew over the next few years to become the dominant web browser, and that was sufficient.

Safari has never been the dominant browser; not sure why you think that. Other than the United States, iPhone marketshare is under 50% everywhere else.

Even in 2025, Safari's global marketshare is about 15% [1] and that's after selling 3 billion devices [2].

[1]: https://backlinko.com/browser-market-share

[2]: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/31/apple-has-now-sold-three-b...

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#152

Post by dinkleberg »

It is kind of wild to admit, but the bottom of this article made me think about the fact that RSS readers can be local apps for the first time ever... I've always used hosted services and run my own Miniflux server. But a quick search revealed a nice native linux reader: https://gfeeds.gabmus.org/.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#153

Post by snickerbockers »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #93
lunias wrote: post #59

The "old web" to me was GeoCities and Angelfire, it was customizing your NeoPets shop, it was hosting a web server on your home network on port 8080. It was mailing a check to an address you found on a website in hopes that you'd receive a bootleg anime VHS in the mail a few weeks later. It was webrings, banners, and websites reviewing and promoting other sites through a "links" section. It was right-clicking to copy…

It really is crazy how much was lost when Apple killed Flash. Absolutely miss Newgrounds. It's still around of course, I'm reflecting more on the vibes when it was in its heyday. Unbelievable the games people were making with Flash back then and how it spawned the careers of a ton of indie darlings. Also, not Flash at all, but does anyone remember Exit Mundi? Absolute gold. Honestly, I kind of look back on blogging u…

It's more to do with HTML5 than lack-of flash, although it could be argued that flash's long-prophesied downfall was one of the reasons for HTML5's rapid adoption.

HTML5 is when the web stopped being the web. It has no legitimacy in calling itself "hypertext", it's an app-delivery mechanism with a built-in compatibility layer. In this regard Flash is just as bad and probably even worse, but since it wasn't in anyway standardized or even open-source there was a fair amount of pushback from all fronts. HTML5 had no such pushback.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#154

Post by NetOpWibby »

Apreche wrote: post #25

The old web isn’t a platform, an aesthetic, or a technology. The old web is people creating and sharing because they are intrinsically motivated. Everything we hate about the current web comes from extrinsic motivations. Good luck removing them.

Beautifully and succinctly stated, damn. This is like, reading a bunch of philosophy and trying to wrap your head around it and some bored professor casually ELI5’s the topic.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#155

Post by smnplk »

superkuh wrote: post #81

The old web never went away, it never died. It was you who left. You who runs a corporate browser that can't even load HTTP pages anymore. You who only post on massive corporate run social media (like I am with HN). You who host your website on github or behind cloudflare or don't even bother and just have a mastodon or facebook page (both exclusively javascript applications). The old web is still there, almost invis…

But noone wants to look at another website anymore. People dont browse the web like in the old days or in the 2000s or in the 2010s. People are just used to being siloed now. Many dont even know what the old web was and how it felt. There are just a few silos now, FB , reddit, X and this is all they know, many dont even know much more than FB.

Internet has become dogshit wrapped in catshit.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#156

Post by renewiltord »

Blog platforms seem to come and go pursuing this goal. It's funny to think that when Ghost came on to the scene (12 years ago! There goes the time!), it too was all about just blogging https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5625546

I have an old Wordpress blog I used to run and that I backed up but never restored when Hetzner needed to migrate the VM. It's been almost a decade that that backup was taken. I wonder if I will be able to resurrect it. It's somewhere on all these hard drives...

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#157

Post by com2kid »

alwillis wrote: post #151
johnfn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steve Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash" [1] in 2010; Flash was discontinued by Adobe in 2017. If Apple supposedly "killed" Flash, they sure took their time doing so. I’m really surprised anyone could say that. To my view, “Thoughts on Flash killed Flash” is about as true as “the sky is blue”. It’s fairly clear to me that without a strong stance, a less principled mobile OS (like Android) would have supported it, a…

> You correctly cite that iOS penetration was low at the time, but mobile Safari grew over the next few years to become the dominant web browser, and that was sufficient. First, there's no way Flash would still be alive today; Apple might have sped up its demise but it had so many disadvantages, it was just a matter of time and it was controlled by one company. Remember that the web standards movement was kicking int…

> Microsoft attempted to take over the web with Active X, Silverlight, JScript.

Silverlight was a responsive to flash.

It was also remarkably open for the time, ran on all desktop platforms, and in an alternative universe Silverlight is an open source cross platform UI toolkit that runs with a tiny fraction of the system requirements of electron, using a far superior tool chain.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#158

Post by chasing0entropy »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #95
butz wrote: post #90

I think youtube should not be mixed into old web. Either embed your video in website and provide download, or host it on peertube. I know about video file hosting issues and costs, so maybe use appropriatly sized videos? Low quality, low resolution, compress as much as possible, and it will probably won't take more than any average website. :)

There's no way for a video platform to work without some sort of payment. Video costs money. Thankfully, Cloudflare R2 is enough for the average blogger. You just gotta figure out how to use it. I'm building a short-form video platform with R2 as the storage backend. I figured out transcoding but I definitely need a better server for it. The old web isn't coming back because "free" is rife for abuse. I've embedded a…

Youtube did it for a decade, google did it for another before it got ridiculous.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#159

Post by toast0 »

alwillis wrote: post #119
Bjorkbat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is crazy how much was lost when Apple killed Flash. Absolutely miss Newgrounds. It's still around of course, I'm reflecting more on the vibes when it was in its heyday. Unbelievable the games people were making with Flash back then and how it spawned the careers of a ton of indie darlings. Also, not Flash at all, but does anyone remember Exit Mundi? Absolute gold. Honestly, I kind of look back on blogging u…

> It really is crazy how much was lost when Apple killed Flash. Steve Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash" [1] in 2010; Flash was discontinued by Adobe in 2017. If Apple supposedly "killed" Flash, they sure took their time doing so. The iPhone had about 14% marketshare at the time, so it's not like Apple was in a commanding position to dictate terms to the industry. But if you read his letter, what he said made total s…

> Apple was still selling the iPhone 3GS at the time, a device with 256Mb of RAM and a 600Mhz 32-bit processor.

That's a ton of ram. I recall spending a lot of time on flash websites in the early 2000s in college on the school issued laptop with maybe 64 mb of ram (and I think maybe pentium iii 650mhz so more cpu oomph)

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