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Resurrect the Old Web

stevedylandev.bearblog.dev

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Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#21

Post by afinewinterday »

afinewinterday wrote: post #11

I think OP missed a big point: it’s also the fact that algorithms are sifting through every word and picture you post and constructing insanely accurate targeting to sell to advertisers and governments, and to the bad side of those two. What we also need is privacy. I only want my friends to see my blog or rss feed. Not the entire planet and every greedy spyware.

Funny when I look at my account on another machine when not logged in my score is -1, but that is hidden when I’m logged in to HN and everything looks normal and score is 1.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#22

Post by 101008 »

I did something similar a few months, launched it on HN, no traction. It's really difficult. No one wants to host their blog / posts on a platform that will dissapear when the owner gets bored or can't maintain it anymore.

Added this to other comments: old web had ads (iframes, banners, popups!), and also was completely self-hosted, which gave you more freedom than any other cloud platform. If you want to resurect old web, just give a free hosting with FTP.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#23

Post by NetOpWibby »

mschuster91 wrote: post #12

Old Web was killed by spam bots, Metasploit, Shodan and DDoS attacks getting easy enough to buy for random joes. I ran phpBB boards, my own blogs, an instance of a German php-based MMORPG I long forgot the name of. But it simply wasn't fun any more to keep up with the bad actors, to wake up and find someone found yet another bug in the MMORPG software or phpBB and in the best case just spammed profanities, in the wor…

Okay, so we need Old Web with extra steps (security).

I’ll admit that when I lament the web we used to have, I’m never thinking about viruses, malware, pop ups/unders, &c. Seems like all that stuff was just a small price to pay for connecting with likeminded people.

I have a slice of that with Mastodon but maybe being 20 years older and jaded is making me wistful, yearning for something that is never coming back.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#24

Post by reaperducer »

afinewinterday wrote: post #11

I think OP missed a big point: it’s also the fact that algorithms are sifting through every word and picture you post and constructing insanely accurate targeting to sell to advertisers and governments, and to the bad side of those two. What we also need is privacy. I only want my friends to see my blog or rss feed. Not the entire planet and every greedy spyware.

Not the entire planet and every greedy spyware.

I don't mind the entire planet of human beings seeing my blog, but I don't want what I write to be monetized by grifters and trillion-dollar companies.

For that reason, my personal blog is behind security so only invited people can see it.

It works very well, but no, I'm not going to explain how it works because there are plenty of people on HN who have no morals, work for crappy companies, or are part of the trillion-dollar machines that are destroying human creativity so some C-level can buy a third private island.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#25

Post by Apreche »

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.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#26

Post by gjsman-1000 »

101008 wrote: post #22

I did something similar a few months, launched it on HN, no traction. It's really difficult. No one wants to host their blog / posts on a platform that will dissapear when the owner gets bored or can't maintain it anymore. Added this to other comments: old web had ads (iframes, banners, popups!), and also was completely self-hosted, which gave you more freedom than any other cloud platform. If you want to resurect ol…

I think the "old web" is also heavily nostalgia-infested, it wasn't nearly as good as most people here remember.

Blatantly false information? Internet Explorer required for everything? Adobe Flash and Java all over the place? Websites that frequently actually could hack your computer? Geocities and AOL being the meeting places, reincarnated as Discord? Terribly slow, low-resolution imagery that our brains filled in the details for? The worst font and font color choices known to man? Shock content being absolutely rampant? Constant pop-ups? Every company wanting a toolbar?

That's what I remember. It's the same phenomenon where people think their Nintendo 64 or PlayStation 2 was a masterpiece never paralleled, revisit it in 2025, and realize: "wow... this... sucks actually." It's the same phenomenon where people think cars were better in the 80s, but they sit in an 80s car, and realize we've come a long, long way.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#27

Post by krapp »

101008 wrote: post #22

I did something similar a few months, launched it on HN, no traction. It's really difficult. No one wants to host their blog / posts on a platform that will dissapear when the owner gets bored or can't maintain it anymore. Added this to other comments: old web had ads (iframes, banners, popups!), and also was completely self-hosted, which gave you more freedom than any other cloud platform. If you want to resurect ol…

Even on the old web, most people hosted their sites on a service like Geocities or on their ISP's servers, school, etc. Very few people actually self-hosted.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#28

Post by NetOpWibby »

101008 wrote: post #22

I did something similar a few months, launched it on HN, no traction. It's really difficult. No one wants to host their blog / posts on a platform that will dissapear when the owner gets bored or can't maintain it anymore. Added this to other comments: old web had ads (iframes, banners, popups!), and also was completely self-hosted, which gave you more freedom than any other cloud platform. If you want to resurect ol…

Actually not a bad idea, just not making this offer available to the world. Or maybe have a super low storage limit like 100MB. Or 10.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#29

Post by NetOpWibby »

jan_Sate wrote: post #20

Not closely relevant but I've revamped my personal website earlier this year to bring the old web vibe into it. I've got a 88x31 GIF section and I wonder where I could look for other old web sites to cross link with my site.

I have 88x31 banners on my homepage, https://webb.page, what’s yours?

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#30

Post by reactordev »

2THFairy wrote: post #18
onion2k wrote: post #4

No ads I don't know what "Old Web" the author is remembering but when I was first paid to make a website in 1997, it had banner ads on it.

So, obviously, ads were the norm back in the day. The author had to be wearing several rose tinted glasses when writing that. But the author isn't entirely wrong. There were/are a lot of websites that simply did not run ads. Hosted not for money, but "for love of the game". This is something that was lost with the shift to exclusively platform-based hosting. A facebook page or subreddit simply is never going to be ad…

They all wish they had the viewership for ads. They definitely were a thing all the way back to the first browsers. Banners, side banners, buttons, applets, most web advertising size standards are derivative of these initial placements.

What you’re talking about was geocities or aol’s members sites that anyone could build a site with. Anyone running CGI wishes for that sweet ad revenue to pay for the Sun servers…

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