The only useful part of the article was the holding up of two example websites. If the whole article had been an informative survey of websites done right, it w

The only useful part of the article was the holding up of two example websites. If the whole article had been an informative survey of websites done right, it would have been a much more worthwhile read. The problem of monetization through serving ads that the author points out won't be solved by reverting to HTML only or even to text only. If a website costs money to host or create content for then it must generate revenue to pay the bills unless the author has other means of doing so. Making websites smaller will reduce those costs but won't eliminate them. UBI is a non-answer to this, implementing it won't allow everyone to quit their jobs and make art instead. Ideally it's meant to be a social safety net, not a way to sponge off of "billionaires paying their taxes" and no ideal survives contact with implementation. We could hope for a marginal improvement on welfare at best (and that would be a good thing, even small improvements count). The current web can and should be improved upon. Web browsers are in a "worst (that works) is best" situation after having roughly solved the software distribution problem. We need to take these lessons and move on to something better. Seamless execution of software in a sandboxed environment. That's how you solve the current state of the web, build something that is better suited to what people are trying to shoehorn into browsers and they will move all of their bloated apps off of the web leaving only pristine documents behind.