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The “small web” is bigger than you might think

kevinboone.me

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Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#41

Post by marginalia_nu »

lich_king wrote: post #14
upboundspiral wrote: post #6

I think the article briefly touches on an important part: people still write blogs, but they are buried by Google that now optimizes their algorithm for monetization and not usefulness. Anyone interested in seeing what the web when the search engines selects for real people and not SEO optimized slop should check out https://marginalia-search.com . It's a search engine with the goal of finding exactly that - blogs, w…

> Google that now optimizes their algorithm for monetization and not usefulness. I don't think they do that. Instead, "usefulness" is mostly synonymous with commercial intent: searching for often means "I want to buy ". Even for non-commercial queries, I think the sad reality is that most people subconsciously prefer LLM-generated or content-farmed stuff too. It looks more professional, has nice images (never mind th…

Google and most search engines optimize for what is most likely to be clicked on. This works poorly and creates a huge popularity bias at scale because it starts feeding on its own tail: What major search engines show you is after all a large contributor to what's most likely to be clicked on.

The reason Marginalia (for some queries) feels like it shows such refreshing results is that it simply does not take popularity into account.

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#42

Post by pixl97 »

8organicbits wrote: post #13
apples_oranges wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeding llms you mean

Is there a good free-but-subscriber-only solution for blogs? It seems like a contradiction, but in practice it may be manageable.

If it takes off in any amount, then LLMs will just subscribe and pull said data from sites at a reasonable pace (or not, it's free so make many accounts).

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#43

Post by [deleted] »

varun_ch wrote: post #22

A fun trend on the "small web" is the use of 88x31 badges that link to friends websites or in webrings. I have a few on my website, and you can browse a ton of small web websites that way. https://varun.ch (at the bottom of the page) There's also a couple directories/network graphs https://matdoes.dev/buttons https://eightyeightthirty.one/

[deleted]

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#44

Post by GuB-42 »

I don't expect many people to agree but I think that the "small web" should reject encryption, which is the opposite direction that Gemini is taking.

I don't deny the importance of encryption, it is really what shaped the modern web, allowing for secure payment, private transfer of personal information, etc... See where I am getting at?

Removing encryption means that you can't reasonably do financial transactions, accounts and access restriction, exchange of private information, etc... You only share what you want to share publicly, with no restrictions. It seriously limits commercial potential which is the point.

It also helps technically. If you want to make a tiny web server, like on a microcontroller, encryption is the hardest part. In addition, TLS comes with expiring certificates, requiring regular maintenance, you can't just have your server and leave it alone for years, still working. It can also bring back simple caching proxies, great for poor connectivity.

Two problems remain with the lack of encryption, first is authenticity. Anyone can man-in-the-middle and change the web page, TLS prevents that. But what I think is an even better solution is to do it at the content level: sign the content, like a GPG signature, not the server, this way you can guarantee the authenticity of the content, no matter where you are getting it from.

The other thing is the usual argument about oppressive governments, etc... Well, if want to protect yourself, TLS won't save you, you will be given away by your IP address, they may not see exactly what you are looking at, but the simple fact you are connecting to a server containing sensitive data may be evidence enough. Protecting your identity is what networks like TOR are for, and you can hide a plain text server behind the TOR network, which would act as the privacy layer.

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#45

Post by Cyan488 »

freediver wrote: post #33

Kagi Small Web has about 32K sites and I'd like to think that we have captured most of (english speaking) personal blogs out there (we are adding about 10 per day and a significant effort went into discovering/fidning them). It is kind of sad that the entire size of this small web is only 30k sites these days.

I'm noticing sites that break the rules. I report (flag) them, is that useful or should I just PR to remove them?

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#46

Post by freediver »

lich_king wrote: post #39
freediver wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mainly use Kagi Small Web as a starting point of my day, with my morning coffee. Especially now when categories are added, always find something worth reading. The size here does not present a problem as I would usually browse 20-30 sites this way.

Right, but that basically works as a retro alternative to scrolling through social media. If you're looking for something specific, it's simultaneously true that there's a small web page that answers your question and that it's not on any "small web" list because the owner of the webpage never submitted it there, or didn't meet the criteria for inclusion. For example, I have several non-commercial, personal websites…

Feel free to suggest changes to criteria for inclusion. It is mostly the way it is now as the entire project is maintained by one person - me :)

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#47

Post by marginalia_nu »

GuB-42 wrote: post #44

I don't expect many people to agree but I think that the "small web" should reject encryption, which is the opposite direction that Gemini is taking. I don't deny the importance of encryption, it is really what shaped the modern web, allowing for secure payment, private transfer of personal information, etc... See where I am getting at? Removing encryption means that you can't reasonably do financial transactions, ac…

Big thing that made encryption required is arguably that ISPs started injecting crap into webpages.

Governments can still track you with little issue since SNI is unencrypted. It's also very likely that Cloudflare and the like are sharing what they see as they MITM 80% of your connections.

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#48

Post by throw5 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #44

I don't expect many people to agree but I think that the "small web" should reject encryption, which is the opposite direction that Gemini is taking. I don't deny the importance of encryption, it is really what shaped the modern web, allowing for secure payment, private transfer of personal information, etc... See where I am getting at? Removing encryption means that you can't reasonably do financial transactions, ac…

> But what I think is an even better solution is to do it at the content level: sign the content, like a GPG signature

How would this work in reality? With the current state of browsers this is not possible because the ISP can still insert their content into the page and the browser will still load it with the modified content that does not match the signature. Nothing forces the GPG signature verification with current tech.

If you mean that browsers need to be updated to verify GPG signature, I'm not sure how realistic that is. Browsers cannot verify the GPG signature and vouch for it until you solve the problem of key revocation and key expiry. If you try to solve key revocation and key expiry, you are back to the same problems that certificates have.

Re: The “small web” is bigger than you might think

#50

Post by Karrot_Kream »

cdrnsf wrote: post #12
romaniv wrote: post #5

Small Web, Indie Web and Gemini are terminally missing the point. The web in the 90s was an ecosystem that attracted people because of experimentation with the medium, diversity of content and certain free-spirited social defaults. It also attracted attention because it was a new, exciting and rapidly expanding phenomenon. To create something equivalent right now you would need to capture those properties, rather the…

There's an element of nostalgia, certainly but it's also a reaction to the overwhelmingly commercial web. Why not build something instead of scrolling through brief videos interspersed with more and more ads that follow you everywhere? Large companies have helped build the web but they've done at least as much, if not more, to help kill it.

The small web can be a lot of things, but IMO it gets too overrun by the ideologically zealous. One does not have to believe in primitive anarchism to enjoy camping, for example. In general it seems any niche idea on the internet is like candle flame to zealous moths.
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