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Poor Man's Web

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Re: Poor Man's Web

#31

Post by 0xEF »

JohnMakin wrote: post #21

I like the gist and spirit of this, of course, but isn’t this basically impossible in today’s day and age? For instance, if I want to host a small web server running in my closet to serve cat memes to a small number of users, I still am beholden to my ISP who 1) must allow me to host a web server in its TOS and 2) provide me a static address. I don’t really see any way to get around corporations on the internet, unle…

I don't know about elsewhere, but I regularly set up small self-hosted web servers at my home (Midwest US) and have never heard a peep from my ISP about it. Some of the aforementioned servers get 25 - 50 unique visits on a high day, and my ISP couldn't care less. I'm not sure they would unless I was calling a lot of traffic, which is not really a huge concern for Small Webbers. We are few and relatively unnoticed by the larger Internet, which is just the way we like it.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#32

Post by torh »

JohnMakin wrote: post #21

I like the gist and spirit of this, of course, but isn’t this basically impossible in today’s day and age? For instance, if I want to host a small web server running in my closet to serve cat memes to a small number of users, I still am beholden to my ISP who 1) must allow me to host a web server in its TOS and 2) provide me a static address. I don’t really see any way to get around corporations on the internet, unle…

1) Haven't really checked, but...

2) I have a fixed IPv4 address, and a dynamic IPv6. So far the latter also seems to be fairly stable, and I host my webpages on both IPv4 and IPv6 these days.

My server is a ThinkPad X240 with VMware ESXi which in turn host Ubuntu for SSH, Web, etc... And a Pi-hole VM just to block the "wost" of the internet.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#33

Post by troupo »

ertian wrote: post #17
PurpleRamen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like how Gemini strips so much faff out that the prose and links must stand strongly on their own. I don't think that's working at all. Their website is so unapproachable bad, that it fails in selling me reasons why I should even care about this or read further. Letting something standing on its own only really works well if you have a small amount to deliver. Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a des…

> Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a desert of letters. So what do you make of books, then? I don't think people "keep trying to make Gemini happen" in the sense that you mean. They're not aiming to replace the web. They've got a cozy little community that likes the 'smol', text-based web. And while 90% of people might think they're crazy, there are others out there who would like it too if only they k…

> So what do you make of books, then?

Have you ... seen books? You can't compare a medium as varied as books to a purposefully limited and primitive medium of Gemini.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#34

Post by troupo »

II2II wrote: post #13
PurpleRamen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like how Gemini strips so much faff out that the prose and links must stand strongly on their own. I don't think that's working at all. Their website is so unapproachable bad, that it fails in selling me reasons why I should even care about this or read further. Letting something standing on its own only really works well if you have a small amount to deliver. Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a des…

> Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a desert of letters. Is this a bad thing? Books are a "desert of letters", with little to break the text up outside of chapters, sections, and paragraphs. If you broaden the scope a bit, you can added illustrations and photos. People have been reading books for generations. While many books do break that mould, many books continue to follow that tradition.

Have you actually seen books? While typographic traditions did go down the drain in the recent decades, it's still hard to find a domain as varied as books.

Even the most boring books often have things that Gemini purposefully omits: from styling to inline illustrations to diagrams to insets, asides, footnotes, tables of content, just tables, typographic marks etc. etc. etc.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#35

Post by jw_cook »

JohnMakin wrote: post #21

I like the gist and spirit of this, of course, but isn’t this basically impossible in today’s day and age? For instance, if I want to host a small web server running in my closet to serve cat memes to a small number of users, I still am beholden to my ISP who 1) must allow me to host a web server in its TOS and 2) provide me a static address. I don’t really see any way to get around corporations on the internet, unle…

ISPs that allow hosting web services are fairly common, but you're right, if all your local providers forbid it, you're probably out of luck.

For your second point, Dynamic DNS is super useful. I've had a good experience with noip.com/ddns.net, but there are plenty of other options out there.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#36

Post by nonrandomstring »

Nice little article but I could hardly disagree more with the headline.

The small web is not for poor men and women. It's for the rich. Those who are rich in culture, intelligence, curiosity, engagement...

The existing "web" is for the technologically poor. It's a chavvy, shallow plastic shit-filled trench, a ghetto where thieves and pimps run free, and good ideas die like dogs - to somewhat paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson. I can't see anything of value left there, and cannot imagine how anyone would equate leaving it behind with being poorer.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#37

Post by basscomm »

surprisetalk wrote: post #18

I recently documented some similar thoughts on the “cheap” web: [1] https://potato.cheap IMO, protocol is largely a distraction from the good stuff. The question I’ve been wondering lately is, “why don’t most people I meet have personal websites?”

I can think of three reasons that more people don't have personal websites:

1. For non technical users (and there are lots of them) learning enough HTML and figuring out how to put it somewhere accessible is too high of a bar to overcome (forget about updating it ever). It's quicker and easier to just establish a presence on some social media site.

2. For technical users who are capable of setting up a website, it's easier to just go where people already are (i.e. social media).

3. It's anecdotal, but I rarely see anyone browsing the web these days. Most web usage seems to consist of endlessly scrolling through Facebook looking for something to interact with. A link to somewhere else might get clicked on, but the user always goes back to the newsfeed once they're done looking at the link.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#38

Post by antiframe »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #28
ertian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a desert of letters. So what do you make of books, then? I don't think people "keep trying to make Gemini happen" in the sense that you mean. They're not aiming to replace the web. They've got a cozy little community that likes the 'smol', text-based web. And while 90% of people might think they're crazy, there are others out there who would like it too if only they k…

> So what do you make of books, then? This webpage is not a book. It has a different purpose. With a book, I know what it contains, where it's leading to, usually they have an abstract for this. I have nothing against Gemini and the people in general, I'm just saying the limitation is not working well for every type of text. Pictures and a bit more structure would be useful for the boring informative texts.

Webpages aren't as monocultural as books, though. There are webpages that have interactive 3D models (which physical books can't). There are webpages that are basically books though. Some webpages will port well to gemtext, some will not. The purpose isn't to replace HTML. The purpose is to make long-form uninterrupted text a first-class citizen by forcing other elements to be second-class citizens.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#39

Post by krapp »

surprisetalk wrote: post #18

I recently documented some similar thoughts on the “cheap” web: [1] https://potato.cheap IMO, protocol is largely a distraction from the good stuff. The question I’ve been wondering lately is, “why don’t most people I meet have personal websites?”

>The question I’ve been wondering lately is, “why don’t most people I meet have personal websites?”

Isn't it obvious? It's simply easier to use a social media platform that makes it easy to publish without having to know how to set up a server or mess with frameworks or code, and that makes it more likely that people will read what you have to say. The utility of personal websites has been replaced by services which solve both the problems of ease of publishing and ease of discovery and networking.

Re: Poor Man's Web

#40

Post by AlbertoGP »

arkh wrote: post #4

Gemini protocol using :// again. I feel like more people should watch Dylan Beattle's "The Web that Never Was" presentation. > gem:my.domain.com/hello

> I feel like more people should watch Dylan Beattle's "The Web that Never Was" presentation.

Didn’t know about it, here is the video of that talk in YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOD1AQGqEg

There is a poem-style intro titled “Flatscreens / a song about code” until the talk proper starts at 5’11”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOD1AQGqEg?t=311

Edit: I’m watching it and it is done in an entertaining style but is a bit loose on some details I know about, such as implying that the IBM PC development was started in the early 1970’s when it was in fact started in 1980. Still worth watching so far.

Edit 2: finished, it is definitely worth watching. It goes into “The Twilight Zone” of a very interesting alternative history. And does a good job reporting on the Gary Kildall / IBM missed deal for their PC OS.

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