4 ms·

I remember the backlash against unique designs where everyone said they just wanted plain sites, with the information in focus. Now when big parts of internet b

by Kiro 5y ago

I remember the backlash against unique designs where everyone said they just wanted plain sites, with the information in focus. Now when big parts of internet basically have become standardized and sterile everyone wants these unique designs back.

ratww 5y ago
It's not the same thing. What everyone misses are the personal, hobbyist, non-commercial websites. This was replaced by things like Facebook, Wikia, Pinterest, Twitter, Medium, which are both constrained and ad-ridden. A bit of that old web still live in places like Tumblr. The "every site looking the same" thing is fine, however, and still preferred for commercial sites, government, newspapers, startups, other utilities. In fact most of those could still look more of the same, because visitors rarely care about the differentiation for marketing purposes. You could get away with removing all parallax effects from those sites and nobody would miss them. Same for advertisements: nobody cares for the forced variety of colourful banners in web advertisement.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  The sad part is that those websites do exist, but are nigh impossible to stumble upon except in association with a particular context. For example, small communities around specific interests, and personal sites of authors of specific works. We really just need a concentrated effort to catalogue and curate them under a single banner. These efforts also do exist, but haven't yet reached critical mass. Probably because policing content is a full-time job.
- DavidVoid 5y ago
  > A bit of that old web still live in places like Tumblr. It will be a sad sad day when/if Tumblr gets shut down. I really appreciate the fact that users can customize their own pages in many more ways than just changing their profile picture and header image, it gives it a lot more personality than you can get on Instagram/Tumblr/Facebook. It also has a timelessness that you don't really get on other sites, at least not to the same degree. Posts have timestamps, but on the dashboard they're only visible if you look for them. So most people don't notice if the post they just reblogged was originally posted yesterday -- or seven years ago. This also gets rid of much of the repost issues you see on Reddit and similar sites, since the original post can remain relevant for much longer.
  - ratww 5y ago
    Tumblr really got it right, IMO. - It has all the tools for newbies (WYSIWYG) - It has tools for advanced users (HTML editors) - It has a marketplace for templates for those in-between - It has the "good" social features (follow, republish) - It doesn't use too many dark patterns - It's not a walled garden that blocks or pollutes Google search results, like Facebook or Pinterest - It has no "algorithm" encouraging people to consume the same bullshit as in Twitter/FB/Youtube - It encourages people browsing specific blogs instead of doing pointless doom-scrolling Of course it also has a lot of problems, but I'd say they're mostly social and not related to how the platform is built. On the other hand the same issues happen on Twitter and Facebook, so...
ori_b 5y ago
It's not about the design, it's about the commercialization.
- ozim 5y ago
  Thing is commercialization made it easier for people to express themselves and actually start using that resource. Commercialization made it form "only nerds sit in there" to "everyone is on the internet and it is cool", if there would be no commercialization, internet for masses would still be a silly toy. Just like going to the Mars - it is just a "hobby" for NASA, most of people on Earth are not giving a damn that they just landed another rover. There is no practical way to make money on space travel currently. Find a way to earn money on sending rockets to Mars or Moon, everyone is going to jump into it. Companies on its own without hype would not go to the internet or digitalize their processes. There is still loads of companies that are not digital. There are loads of stories of how companies started switching to digital last year because of recent events...
  - ByteJockey 5y ago
    > if there would be no commercialization, internet for masses would still be a silly toy. Sure, but part of the fun of the old internet was that it was a silly toy that people didn't take too seriously, at least most of the time, there were definitely still some flamewars stemming from people taking things way too seriously.
  - emptyparadise 5y ago
    Then maybe it's commercialization I dislike. I loved the silly toy internet. It was a place to get away from the real world. Now it's just a part of the real world. A lot of things turn lame once real names and money are involved. And that's the fate of most things once they get big enough. It makes sense, but it's still sad.
    - ozim 5y ago
      I don't think it is sad because it provides so much more value to the whole world. Keeping it as a toy for selected ones would be really selfish. There is still a lot of place for "not real world" in here.
nabla9 5y ago
When we said we wanted plain sites, we meant like this https://lite.cnn.com/en https://lite.cnn.com/en or https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/ We did not mean standardize to big picture smiling people, carousels to more pictures and with just one sentence.

by Kiro 5y ago

ratww 5y ago

It's not the same thing. What everyone misses are the personal, hobbyist, non-commercial websites. This was replaced by things like Facebook, Wikia, Pinterest, Twitter, Medium, which are both constrained and ad-ridden. A bit of that old web still live in places like Tumblr. The "every site looking the same" thing is fine, however, and still preferred for commercial sites, government, newspapers, startups, other utilities. In fact most of those could still look more of the same, because visitors rarely care about the differentiation for marketing purposes. You could get away with removing all parallax effects from those sites and nobody would miss them. Same for advertisements: nobody cares for the forced variety of colourful banners in web advertisement.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
The sad part is that those websites do exist, but are nigh impossible to stumble upon except in association with a particular context. For example, small communities around specific interests, and personal sites of authors of specific works. We really just need a concentrated effort to catalogue and curate them under a single banner. These efforts also do exist, but haven't yet reached critical mass. Probably because policing content is a full-time job.
DavidVoid 5y ago
> A bit of that old web still live in places like Tumblr. It will be a sad sad day when/if Tumblr gets shut down. I really appreciate the fact that users can customize their own pages in many more ways than just changing their profile picture and header image, it gives it a lot more personality than you can get on Instagram/Tumblr/Facebook. It also has a timelessness that you don't really get on other sites, at least not to the same degree. Posts have timestamps, but on the dashboard they're only visible if you look for them. So most people don't notice if the post they just reblogged was originally posted yesterday -- or seven years ago. This also gets rid of much of the repost issues you see on Reddit and similar sites, since the original post can remain relevant for much longer.
- ratww 5y ago
  Tumblr really got it right, IMO. - It has all the tools for newbies (WYSIWYG) - It has tools for advanced users (HTML editors) - It has a marketplace for templates for those in-between - It has the "good" social features (follow, republish) - It doesn't use too many dark patterns - It's not a walled garden that blocks or pollutes Google search results, like Facebook or Pinterest - It has no "algorithm" encouraging people to consume the same bullshit as in Twitter/FB/Youtube - It encourages people browsing specific blogs instead of doing pointless doom-scrolling Of course it also has a lot of problems, but I'd say they're mostly social and not related to how the platform is built. On the other hand the same issues happen on Twitter and Facebook, so...

ori_b 5y ago

It's not about the design, it's about the commercialization.

ozim 5y ago
Thing is commercialization made it easier for people to express themselves and actually start using that resource. Commercialization made it form "only nerds sit in there" to "everyone is on the internet and it is cool", if there would be no commercialization, internet for masses would still be a silly toy. Just like going to the Mars - it is just a "hobby" for NASA, most of people on Earth are not giving a damn that they just landed another rover. There is no practical way to make money on space travel currently. Find a way to earn money on sending rockets to Mars or Moon, everyone is going to jump into it. Companies on its own without hype would not go to the internet or digitalize their processes. There is still loads of companies that are not digital. There are loads of stories of how companies started switching to digital last year because of recent events...
- ByteJockey 5y ago
  > if there would be no commercialization, internet for masses would still be a silly toy. Sure, but part of the fun of the old internet was that it was a silly toy that people didn't take too seriously, at least most of the time, there were definitely still some flamewars stemming from people taking things way too seriously.
- emptyparadise 5y ago
  Then maybe it's commercialization I dislike. I loved the silly toy internet. It was a place to get away from the real world. Now it's just a part of the real world. A lot of things turn lame once real names and money are involved. And that's the fate of most things once they get big enough. It makes sense, but it's still sad.
  - ozim 5y ago
    I don't think it is sad because it provides so much more value to the whole world. Keeping it as a toy for selected ones would be really selfish. There is still a lot of place for "not real world" in here.

nabla9 5y ago

When we said we wanted plain sites, we meant like this https://lite.cnn.com/en https://lite.cnn.com/en or https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/ We did not mean standardize to big picture smiling people, carousels to more pictures and with just one sentence.