9 ms·

Web 2.0 sucks sharp pebbles and canal water through a dirty straw

48 points by billwear 4y ago

mmphosis 4y ago
already too much boilerplate for content, and please dispense with the div tag. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <title></title> </head> <body> </body> </html>
- mccorrinall 4y ago
  Why open a second html tag right before the body?
- AreYouSirius 4y ago
- adamantics 4y ago
  whoooow ! problem of current web is exact opposite - there is too LITTLE information about content, i would love to have some additional tags, bring some LATEX into web! so we can have UI "skins"/ themes for all pages exactly same, because it will be client side software responsibility to render it and user chooses theme as user wants / needs i.e disabilities, machine reading so i can actaully use my 4000 dollar gpu with 4gb vram to read text for me. and because of STANDARDIZATION those themes will be universaly working, not i can choose drakoola on reddit but i have to choose monokai on gogole news because those are most similar themes to each other, which i get dictated to use by corporation. corporation dictates how ti should look. i want t oit to look exactly same. it will be easier to consume, less traffic will be needed becasue les page loads, content can be dynamically added i.e. new reddit comment etc do not use BOLD, use EMPHASIS, do tell me what content of picture is by inserting WORDS INTO DESCRIPTION so i can choose if i need to load it or it is just some placeholder /ad which i dont have to see and most people forgets that HTML is NOT meant to be read by people but read by MACHINES. HTML is as bad implementation of latex as RSS is bad implementation of USENET same primitive s... as with current AI, it can tell you if there is dog in picture but it cannot tell you more about that picture, what exactly is meaning/essence of picture of that dog in there. im not trolling , im not joking. web 1 was awesome because i can literaly PUT FREAKING links to content directly, web 2.0. YOU CANT. this should be made mandatory, make dark web 10 % of web ! i was flabbergasted when i think google? announced that you can now create a hyperlink to a specific location in another Web page like WHAT ? you mean i can actually use thing i used in freaking firefox 2.0 or in netscape navigator ? you cant be serious ! XD but this is state of thing. try to link some FAANG forum page from 2013. you cant because hierarchy of whole "forum" changed and you have to manualy search for answer and not even start about twitter which dont let you browse without logging in. i dont mind logging in if logging is NOT paired with my number etc. now imagine having this in your emacs / lynks (webbrowser) window wouldnt be that freaking crazy nice? you can choose which users comment will be highlighted ( friend, replying to you, contains some word...) CLIENT SIDE so there will be less bandwidth and resources wasted fro coprporation.
  - victorvscn 4y ago
    I think you've gone overboard and you're wrong about so much, but I agree that it should be easier to use your own themes. I mean, I hope you've heard of Stylish, Dark Reader and Tampermonkey. They help tremendously. But it's not the same as having shit done right.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  <!doctype html> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> Content.
  - SahAssar 4y ago
    You need a <title> for it to be spec compliant.
    - victorvscn 4y ago
      Only on XHTML, actually.
      - SahAssar 4y ago
        Source? Seems to be required based on https://validator.w3.org/nu/ https://validator.w3.org/nu/ which is also linked as the validator to use for WHATWG from https://whatwg.org/validator/ https://whatwg.org/validator/
    - rchaud 4y ago
      And for it to show up in a search engine's results page without looking like a strange URL you'd associate with a file in a CMS media library (s3.aws.com, or wp-content/2022/04/01/image.jpg)
    - threatofrain 4y ago
      My mistake! https://google.github.io/styleguide/htmlcssguide.html https://google.github.io/styleguide/htmlcssguide.html
- victorvscn 4y ago
  Whatever the hell happened to XHTML? Stop being lazy.
bern4444 4y ago
Just set your bills to auto pay no? As to the passwords issue, I use both 1password and apple's keychain password manager. I've never had a problem with either. 1Password I believe lets you specify symbols, numbers, capital letters etc when generating a password. LastPass does too. None of these issues are really Web 2.0 related, just poor implementations and designs. Plenty of counter examples to how great Web 2.0 is.
obarthelemy 4y ago
Not sure what any of this has to do with web 2.0. Bad UI is bad UI. Could be web 2.0, could be an app, could be web 3. Have you seriously not heard about using different browsers for different accounts on the same site ? Many Androids will even let you install the same app twice to use different credentials. So basically, a lot of software is badly designed, coded, and unsafe. Yep. And apparently people are trying to blame "the web" for that ? BTW, there's no way to navigate your blog now ? That's good design ?
- SGML_ROCKSTAR 4y ago
  BTW, there's no way to navigate your blog now ? That's good design ? What do you mean? The user can just use the browser's location field and go up a directory to /blog, where they should see links to published posts for April.
  - nagonago 4y ago
    Perhaps if browsers had a 'go up one folder' button like file explorers, this might be reasonable, but it's pretty disingenuous to expect users to edit the URL bar for navigation. Even the simplest Web 1.0 sites still have basic navigation.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      Craigslist.com is a masterpiece of usable information architecture in the Web 1.0/1.5 era. They had very minimal styling, close to browser default, and descriptive categories with all related sub-categories appearing underneath it.
  - simooooo 4y ago
    Sounds like an amazing experience on mobile
  - hoseja 4y ago
    Also, <title>&lrm;</title> ...
  - 4y ago
srmarm 4y ago
> Now, I just link everything off of the homepage, in a nice bulleted list, and just let the user go "back". That's what the back button is for, anyway. That falls apart neatly in this example where the internal page is deeplinked to and the back button brings me to this comment thread rather than the homepage.
- danmur 4y ago
  Yeah, it still needs a 'back to home' link somewhere
- NylaTheWolf 4y ago
  Hell, it could literally be a blog post hyperlinked anywhere or even one that the user bookmarks.
eternityforest 4y ago
Endless scrolling, plus the demise of forums and personal sites, is the main canal water I can think of in web 2.0. Modern password sync stuff is either E2E encrypted or maintained by Google. Probably won't be hacked. If you don't own crypto you can probably fix it in the unlikely event it does. Even if it does get hacked, they'd have to hack your phone or network to get past the 2FA on most important sites. Making a payment online is insanely easy compared to analog methods. Hard to complain too much when you compare it to cash and checks. People used to literally balance checkbooks and some still call it a life skill. Online payments are like having a personal butler level of luxury. Web1.0 aesthetics were pretty cool though, and the content was great.
- theknocker 4y ago
- victorvscn 4y ago
  You know, there's an article about 2022 UI design trends on Medium and web 1.0 aesthetics coming back is one of them. https://medium.com/codeart-mk/ux-ui-trends-2022-31023ae36fa https://medium.com/codeart-mk/ux-ui-trends-2022-31023ae36fa
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Unfortunately, people don't make websites anymore, corporations do. They're never going to go Web 1.0 unless it's a special landing page for some marketing effort they're doing, and will be replaced with the bland corporate design as soon as the campaign is over.
- victorvscn 4y ago
  By the way, you're completely right about password managers. E2E + 2FA and you're done. I wonder what their solution for "single point of failure" is, because there isn't a single one that's not flawed.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
pornel 4y ago
Slightly tangential, but the "Web + number" numeration commonly used these days is off by one. The Web 2.0 has ended on July 1st 2013†. The corporate-capture app-centric surveillance adtech dystopia we have now is something else. We've had open Web APIs. We've had OpenID. We've had ambitions for semantic web and microformats. We've had API mash-ups. All of this has been closed, abandoned, or morphed into a locked-in monetized hell when VCs demanded their money back. †) it's symbolic of course, but that's when shutdown of Google Reader deflated enthusiasm about syndication. About that time Google dropped their "don't be evil" motto, and wrote a spec for launching secret DRM APIs from HTML5.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  sigh, I miss google reader...
  - zaik 4y ago
    I'm too young to have used Google Reader, but I have a selection of ATOM/RSS feeds I follow. Is that not comparable?
    - bckr 4y ago
      it is comparable, but if I recall, not only was Google Reader's interface slick and had nice features for filtering / automating your feed, but there were pleasant social and discovery features, as well as, I think, the ability to subscribe to websites that didn't even offer RSS feeds. The web felt different when Reader was killed.
      - pornel 4y ago
        It wasn't just the Reader itself (there were arguably many better RSS readers), but the fact that it was a mainstream product from a high-profile well-respected company. There being a Google Reader elevated credibility of RSS from a nerdy XML protocol into a fashionable feature you could recommend to "normal" users. Similar thing happened with XMPP and Google Talk. There was a brief moment in time when you could use any instant messenger with any client of your choice (talk to both Facebook Messenger and Google Talk users via your own server). That also been killed off in favor of proprietary apps. I'm trying to think of a current-day equivalent of what a shock and disappointment that was, but I'm afraid proprietary protocols and non-interoperable app silos became such a norm that nobody even expects things to work together. I expect GMail to drop IMAP support any day now.
rchaud 4y ago
Is it too Web 2.0 of me to wish that the writer had added some before and after images? It's punishing to have to reading through a post where the text spans the viewport width. It's like he took motherfuckingwebsite.com to heart, instead of the bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com which actually prioritized readability.

48 points by billwear 4y ago

already too much boilerplate for content, and please dispense with the div tag. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <title></title> </head> <body> </body> </html>

mccorrinall 4y ago
Why open a second html tag right before the body?
AreYouSirius 4y ago
adamantics 4y ago
whoooow ! problem of current web is exact opposite - there is too LITTLE information about content, i would love to have some additional tags, bring some LATEX into web! so we can have UI "skins"/ themes for all pages exactly same, because it will be client side software responsibility to render it and user chooses theme as user wants / needs i.e disabilities, machine reading so i can actaully use my 4000 dollar gpu with 4gb vram to read text for me. and because of STANDARDIZATION those themes will be universaly working, not i can choose drakoola on reddit but i have to choose monokai on gogole news because those are most similar themes to each other, which i get dictated to use by corporation. corporation dictates how ti should look. i want t oit to look exactly same. it will be easier to consume, less traffic will be needed becasue les page loads, content can be dynamically added i.e. new reddit comment etc do not use BOLD, use EMPHASIS, do tell me what content of picture is by inserting WORDS INTO DESCRIPTION so i can choose if i need to load it or it is just some placeholder /ad which i dont have to see and most people forgets that HTML is NOT meant to be read by people but read by MACHINES. HTML is as bad implementation of latex as RSS is bad implementation of USENET same primitive s... as with current AI, it can tell you if there is dog in picture but it cannot tell you more about that picture, what exactly is meaning/essence of picture of that dog in there. im not trolling , im not joking. web 1 was awesome because i can literaly PUT FREAKING links to content directly, web 2.0. YOU CANT. this should be made mandatory, make dark web 10 % of web ! i was flabbergasted when i think google? announced that you can now create a hyperlink to a specific location in another Web page like WHAT ? you mean i can actually use thing i used in freaking firefox 2.0 or in netscape navigator ? you cant be serious ! XD but this is state of thing. try to link some FAANG forum page from 2013. you cant because hierarchy of whole "forum" changed and you have to manualy search for answer and not even start about twitter which dont let you browse without logging in. i dont mind logging in if logging is NOT paired with my number etc. now imagine having this in your emacs / lynks (webbrowser) window wouldnt be that freaking crazy nice? you can choose which users comment will be highlighted ( friend, replying to you, contains some word...) CLIENT SIDE so there will be less bandwidth and resources wasted fro coprporation.
- victorvscn 4y ago
  I think you've gone overboard and you're wrong about so much, but I agree that it should be easier to use your own themes. I mean, I hope you've heard of Stylish, Dark Reader and Tampermonkey. They help tremendously. But it's not the same as having shit done right.
threatofrain 4y ago
<!doctype html> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> Content.
- SahAssar 4y ago
  You need a <title> for it to be spec compliant.
  - victorvscn 4y ago
    Only on XHTML, actually.
    - SahAssar 4y ago
      Source? Seems to be required based on https://validator.w3.org/nu/ https://validator.w3.org/nu/ which is also linked as the validator to use for WHATWG from https://whatwg.org/validator/ https://whatwg.org/validator/
  - rchaud 4y ago
    And for it to show up in a search engine's results page without looking like a strange URL you'd associate with a file in a CMS media library (s3.aws.com, or wp-content/2022/04/01/image.jpg)
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    My mistake! https://google.github.io/styleguide/htmlcssguide.html https://google.github.io/styleguide/htmlcssguide.html
victorvscn 4y ago
Whatever the hell happened to XHTML? Stop being lazy.

bern4444 4y ago

Just set your bills to auto pay no? As to the passwords issue, I use both 1password and apple's keychain password manager. I've never had a problem with either. 1Password I believe lets you specify symbols, numbers, capital letters etc when generating a password. LastPass does too. None of these issues are really Web 2.0 related, just poor implementations and designs. Plenty of counter examples to how great Web 2.0 is.

obarthelemy 4y ago

Not sure what any of this has to do with web 2.0. Bad UI is bad UI. Could be web 2.0, could be an app, could be web 3. Have you seriously not heard about using different browsers for different accounts on the same site ? Many Androids will even let you install the same app twice to use different credentials. So basically, a lot of software is badly designed, coded, and unsafe. Yep. And apparently people are trying to blame "the web" for that ? BTW, there's no way to navigate your blog now ? That's good design ?

SGML_ROCKSTAR 4y ago
BTW, there's no way to navigate your blog now ? That's good design ? What do you mean? The user can just use the browser's location field and go up a directory to /blog, where they should see links to published posts for April.
- nagonago 4y ago
  Perhaps if browsers had a 'go up one folder' button like file explorers, this might be reasonable, but it's pretty disingenuous to expect users to edit the URL bar for navigation. Even the simplest Web 1.0 sites still have basic navigation.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Craigslist.com is a masterpiece of usable information architecture in the Web 1.0/1.5 era. They had very minimal styling, close to browser default, and descriptive categories with all related sub-categories appearing underneath it.
- simooooo 4y ago
  Sounds like an amazing experience on mobile
- hoseja 4y ago
  Also, <title>&lrm;</title> ...
- 4y ago

srmarm 4y ago

> Now, I just link everything off of the homepage, in a nice bulleted list, and just let the user go "back". That's what the back button is for, anyway. That falls apart neatly in this example where the internal page is deeplinked to and the back button brings me to this comment thread rather than the homepage.

danmur 4y ago
Yeah, it still needs a 'back to home' link somewhere
NylaTheWolf 4y ago
Hell, it could literally be a blog post hyperlinked anywhere or even one that the user bookmarks.

eternityforest 4y ago

Endless scrolling, plus the demise of forums and personal sites, is the main canal water I can think of in web 2.0. Modern password sync stuff is either E2E encrypted or maintained by Google. Probably won't be hacked. If you don't own crypto you can probably fix it in the unlikely event it does. Even if it does get hacked, they'd have to hack your phone or network to get past the 2FA on most important sites. Making a payment online is insanely easy compared to analog methods. Hard to complain too much when you compare it to cash and checks. People used to literally balance checkbooks and some still call it a life skill. Online payments are like having a personal butler level of luxury. Web1.0 aesthetics were pretty cool though, and the content was great.

theknocker 4y ago
victorvscn 4y ago
You know, there's an article about 2022 UI design trends on Medium and web 1.0 aesthetics coming back is one of them. https://medium.com/codeart-mk/ux-ui-trends-2022-31023ae36fa https://medium.com/codeart-mk/ux-ui-trends-2022-31023ae36fa
- rchaud 4y ago
  Unfortunately, people don't make websites anymore, corporations do. They're never going to go Web 1.0 unless it's a special landing page for some marketing effort they're doing, and will be replaced with the bland corporate design as soon as the campaign is over.
victorvscn 4y ago
By the way, you're completely right about password managers. E2E + 2FA and you're done. I wonder what their solution for "single point of failure" is, because there isn't a single one that's not flawed.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago

pornel 4y ago

Slightly tangential, but the "Web + number" numeration commonly used these days is off by one. The Web 2.0 has ended on July 1st 2013†. The corporate-capture app-centric surveillance adtech dystopia we have now is something else. We've had open Web APIs. We've had OpenID. We've had ambitions for semantic web and microformats. We've had API mash-ups. All of this has been closed, abandoned, or morphed into a locked-in monetized hell when VCs demanded their money back. †) it's symbolic of course, but that's when shutdown of Google Reader deflated enthusiasm about syndication. About that time Google dropped their "don't be evil" motto, and wrote a spec for launching secret DRM APIs from HTML5.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
sigh, I miss google reader...
- zaik 4y ago
  I'm too young to have used Google Reader, but I have a selection of ATOM/RSS feeds I follow. Is that not comparable?
  - bckr 4y ago
    it is comparable, but if I recall, not only was Google Reader's interface slick and had nice features for filtering / automating your feed, but there were pleasant social and discovery features, as well as, I think, the ability to subscribe to websites that didn't even offer RSS feeds. The web felt different when Reader was killed.
    - pornel 4y ago
      It wasn't just the Reader itself (there were arguably many better RSS readers), but the fact that it was a mainstream product from a high-profile well-respected company. There being a Google Reader elevated credibility of RSS from a nerdy XML protocol into a fashionable feature you could recommend to "normal" users. Similar thing happened with XMPP and Google Talk. There was a brief moment in time when you could use any instant messenger with any client of your choice (talk to both Facebook Messenger and Google Talk users via your own server). That also been killed off in favor of proprietary apps. I'm trying to think of a current-day equivalent of what a shock and disappointment that was, but I'm afraid proprietary protocols and non-interoperable app silos became such a norm that nobody even expects things to work together. I expect GMail to drop IMAP support any day now.

rchaud 4y ago

Is it too Web 2.0 of me to wish that the writer had added some before and after images? It's punishing to have to reading through a post where the text spans the viewport width. It's like he took motherfuckingwebsite.com to heart, instead of the bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com which actually prioritized readability.