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Resurrect the Old Web

stevedylandev.bearblog.dev

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Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#31

Post by HermanMartinus »

wiether wrote: post #3

I don't get HN's appeal for the bearblog platform? If anything else, if one wants to resurrect the "Old Web", one shouldn't do it on someone else's platform. Parts of the "Old Web" disappeared when the platforms hosting it stopped. The brutal shutting down of Typepad should be another reminder of this reality: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/one-time-wordpress-c...

Creator of Bear here. Suggesting that because one project fails, others will too is a bit of a fallacy. Fact is that whether you self-host or not, you're still using someone else's platform (unless you're a real self-hoster with a box in your closet, in which case, good on you and godspeed).

I think as long as platforms have an easy way for people to backup and migrate, that's fair.

Additionally, part of the appeal of Bear is that I've made it my personal mission to get the platform to outlive me. Take that as you will. I can't prove that Bear will live on in perpetuity, but I can try my best.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#32

Post by [deleted] »

wiether wrote: post #3

I don't get HN's appeal for the bearblog platform? If anything else, if one wants to resurrect the "Old Web", one shouldn't do it on someone else's platform. Parts of the "Old Web" disappeared when the platforms hosting it stopped. The brutal shutting down of Typepad should be another reminder of this reality: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/one-time-wordpress-c...

[deleted]

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#34

Post by krapp »

reactordev wrote: post #30
2THFairy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod and the like all had banner ads. I think you could pay not to have them but for free accounts they were mandatory.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#35

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

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.

It's like the nostalgia about the "Summer of Love" and the 1960's... it really only lasted a single summer and only in one or two little areas.

Same thing with the "old web." It was about the very early 90s before Netscape Navigator (the Mosaic days) and when everyone was just throwing up a single HTML page with a bunch of links... that's the "old web".

The modern WWW kicked off with the ability to make credit card transactions online (1994). That... and porn (1995).

For "old web" sites that still exist, check out wiby

https://wiby.org/

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#36

Post by NetOpWibby »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26
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 t…

Several things can be true at the same time. 80s cars were uncomfortable but damn they look good.

On a CRT display, a game’s aesthetic could thrive but fall flat on modern displays.

Learning patience for slow internet speeds versus immediacy to see stuff you actually don’t wanna see anyway.

It’s all perspective, really.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#37

Post by maxrecursion »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26
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 t…

There are amazing retro games that are still awesome to play to this day. To say they all suck, and it's just nostalgia is not true at all.

Sure, a lot of them suck, especially on Nintendo 64, because of the 3d transition, but from the NES onward there are timeless classics.

My kid beat super Metroid several times, he decided to play it on his own on his switch, and he loved it. He plays the old pokemon games too. In other words, that's a terrible analogy.

Re: Resurrect the Old Web

#39

Post by gjsman-1000 »

maxrecursion wrote: post #37
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

There are amazing retro games that are still awesome to play to this day. To say they all suck, and it's just nostalgia is not true at all. Sure, a lot of them suck, especially on Nintendo 64, because of the 3d transition, but from the NES onward there are timeless classics. My kid beat super Metroid several times, he decided to play it on his own on his switch, and he loved it. He plays the old pokemon games too. In…

You're choosing the top 10 games on the Nintendo 64 and NES to make your analogy; out of the thousands and thousands of games produced for those systems. Give your kid game #50 (Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics on N64) and see if she would prefer it over literally any modern game that ranks on Steam. My analogy holds.
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