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I see all of your points about ‘success’ and ‘inferiority’ if I look at this from the perspective of Facebook being an ‘upgrade’ to the Web - ease of use, frien

I see all of your points about ‘success’ and ‘inferiority’ if I look at this from the perspective of Facebook being an ‘upgrade’ to the Web - ease of use, friends at your fingertips, a landslide of short simple updates. However, I don’t actually see it that way. I would have preferred to fork the Web back in 2007 or so. This is going to sound out of touch, perhaps, but the future of the Web for me, personally, consists of entirely different things. Something like: a place to store my writings/conversations that’s mine and can be organized and designed like I prefer, a good way of finding new people (random little out-of-the-way folks of any stripe), and I don’t want a big feed of random garbage - I want to visit other sites now and then, like I would visit friends IRL - I don’t need everyone in my life everyday. I don’t even care about decentralization or P2P - I actually don’t see that as a central part of the Indieweb. The above is what is important to me. And the Indieweb has been surprisingly satisfying in this way. And it’s actually growing. Not much, but I’m happy with the friends I’ve made. I’m happy with HN as well, for learning things and staying out of my face - but it gets to feel a bit faceless at times because it’s just a bunch of gray comments with often very little to distinguish the people here.

jcelerier 7y ago
> However, I don’t actually see it that way. I would have preferred to fork the Web back in 2007 or so. This is going to sound out of touch, perhaps, but the future of the Web for me, personally, consists of entirely different things. Something like: a place to store my writings/conversations that’s mine and can be organized and designed like I prefer, a good way of finding new people (random little out-of-the-way folks of any stripe), and I don’t want a big feed of random garbage - I want to visit other sites now and then, like I would visit friends IRL - I don’t need everyone in my life everyday. that's nice but it's not what prints money
- walterbell 7y ago
  > that's nice but it's not what prints money Then it's a self-authenticating firewall / Grail quest. Search engines found a way to scale and profit from the long tail.
- pmlnr 7y ago
  The web should be a library, a collective knowledge. F money. We're in the friggin 21st century it should be time to look beyond.
  - wolfgke 7y ago
    > The web should be a library, a collective knowledge. Sounds like an ad for Library Genesis and Sci-Hub. :-)
  - krapp 7y ago
    The web already is the biggest, most comprehensive library and store of collective knowledge in human history. But it shouldn't just be that.
    - pmlnr 7y ago
      > But it shouldn't just be that. No, it shouldn't, true, it's also a media and a connectivity platform. However, in my opinion, the web always should have been strictly non-profit. (Note: non profit means employees are paid properly but the "profit" goes back straight into development, infrastructure, and future proofing). Money involved is only destroying and splitting it.
krapp 7y ago
The thing is, you still can have both on the modern web. The web isn't all FAANG, and there's nothing stopping anyone from changing their browsing habits or not participating in social media if they want, or building sites the way they were built in the 90s.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Oh I absolutely agree. If I think of those large sites as a kind of flypaper, it’s a bit helpful. On the other hand, I don’t think people should be thought of as flies - and I also still kind of believe that Internet can do better.

jcelerier 7y ago

> However, I don’t actually see it that way. I would have preferred to fork the Web back in 2007 or so. This is going to sound out of touch, perhaps, but the future of the Web for me, personally, consists of entirely different things. Something like: a place to store my writings/conversations that’s mine and can be organized and designed like I prefer, a good way of finding new people (random little out-of-the-way folks of any stripe), and I don’t want a big feed of random garbage - I want to visit other sites now and then, like I would visit friends IRL - I don’t need everyone in my life everyday. that's nice but it's not what prints money

walterbell 7y ago
> that's nice but it's not what prints money Then it's a self-authenticating firewall / Grail quest. Search engines found a way to scale and profit from the long tail.
pmlnr 7y ago
The web should be a library, a collective knowledge. F money. We're in the friggin 21st century it should be time to look beyond.
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > The web should be a library, a collective knowledge. Sounds like an ad for Library Genesis and Sci-Hub. :-)
- krapp 7y ago
  The web already is the biggest, most comprehensive library and store of collective knowledge in human history. But it shouldn't just be that.
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    > But it shouldn't just be that. No, it shouldn't, true, it's also a media and a connectivity platform. However, in my opinion, the web always should have been strictly non-profit. (Note: non profit means employees are paid properly but the "profit" goes back straight into development, infrastructure, and future proofing). Money involved is only destroying and splitting it.

krapp 7y ago

The thing is, you still can have both on the modern web. The web isn't all FAANG, and there's nothing stopping anyone from changing their browsing habits or not participating in social media if they want, or building sites the way they were built in the 90s.

kickscondor 7y ago
Oh I absolutely agree. If I think of those large sites as a kind of flypaper, it’s a bit helpful. On the other hand, I don’t think people should be thought of as flies - and I also still kind of believe that Internet can do better.