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That helps solve the privacy problem. It doesn't solve the walled garden, monetized, commercial web outcompeting smaller hobbyists who usually have less slick b

by ori_b 10y ago

That helps solve the privacy problem. It doesn't solve the walled garden, monetized, commercial web outcompeting smaller hobbyists who usually have less slick but far deeper or more interesting content. I remember that in the late 90s through early 2000s, I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. Either all the search results want to sell me something, or they're optimized to make money off of my clicks.

DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
> I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements - not because Disney and TimeWarner have paid Google to rank their results higher. For example, Wikipedia (and Wikia) have replaced personal museum websites for all kinds of esoteric information - ditto fansites. For "Prof. Smith's computer science examples webpage" we have GitHub; Reddit has replaced "Links" pages and Webrings, and Google itself has rendered curated directory sites completely obsolete. The only thing on Geocities and Angelfire/Tripod that Facebook has replaced are those insufferable "The Baker Family Homepage" websites.
- ori_b 10y ago
  > That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements Is it really a replacement if it's private and stuck in some walled garden? I don't care about the platform used, I care about the surfacing and availability of non-commercial content.
  - DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
    Why do you consider Wikipedia a private walled garden? Arguably it's freer and less commercial than older personal home pages because of the mandatory copyleft license.
    - ori_b 10y ago
      Wikipedia has heavily curated content that must be presented in a certain way, protected from editing by trolls, and is reverted regularly. Try making a significant change or writing a new article without being mired in beaurocracy. It's not an example of diverse user-generated content any more. For good reason -- it can't be, if it wants to be considered a useful source on anything.

by ori_b 10y ago

DaiPlusPlus 10y ago

> I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements - not because Disney and TimeWarner have paid Google to rank their results higher. For example, Wikipedia (and Wikia) have replaced personal museum websites for all kinds of esoteric information - ditto fansites. For "Prof. Smith's computer science examples webpage" we have GitHub; Reddit has replaced "Links" pages and Webrings, and Google itself has rendered curated directory sites completely obsolete. The only thing on Geocities and Angelfire/Tripod that Facebook has replaced are those insufferable "The Baker Family Homepage" websites.

ori_b 10y ago
> That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements Is it really a replacement if it's private and stuck in some walled garden? I don't care about the platform used, I care about the surfacing and availability of non-commercial content.
- DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
  Why do you consider Wikipedia a private walled garden? Arguably it's freer and less commercial than older personal home pages because of the mandatory copyleft license.
  - ori_b 10y ago
    Wikipedia has heavily curated content that must be presented in a certain way, protected from editing by trolls, and is reverted regularly. Try making a significant change or writing a new article without being mired in beaurocracy. It's not an example of diverse user-generated content any more. For good reason -- it can't be, if it wants to be considered a useful source on anything.