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> I miss the old internet You and me both. It’s a tangent, but I remember watching The Matrix when it first came out and in that scene where Smith is looking

> I miss the old internet You and me both. It’s a tangent, but I remember watching The Matrix when it first came out and in that scene where Smith is looking out the window telling Neo that they choose that current timeframe for the simulation as it was humanity at it’s peak, I thought it was a little ironic as clearly things were just getting exponentially better all the time. I mean, a lot of things have got better, but we lost a lot along the way too. The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential (or more accurately, we just tossed it for something way inferior that was less hassle). I guess really it’s just surprising to look back at that scene and think there’s some truth in it.. especially given that now it’s 2022 and we’re all flying round Mars in our self-driving Jetson cars.

berkes 4y ago
> The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential Oh, but it could have been far, far worse. We almost lost the web to Adobe/Macromedia/Flash. And then almost again to activeX. At least we still have the open, accessible, extensible web standards. Only that the top-layer: the applications and sites built have been embraced by a few monopolies. I'm rooting for WASM (because of my dislike for JS) but I'm also cautious for one of the FAANG taking wasm and re-trying the old flash/activeX trick again, but now with a "only runs on android" or "requires azure certification" angle via WASM.
- teddyh 4y ago
  What will probably happen is the even older “Best viewed on Google Chrome” gambit. I.e. web sites will technically all be viewable with what are technically open standards, but they will all change so fast, and there will be so many of them, so that the only browser anybody can realistically use is Google Chrome. And if a network can be only accessed with the product from one company, then that company controls that network.
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    I thought this had already happened. WebKit (and it’s forks) has eaten almost all the things already hasn’t it? (FireFox stands as a lone exception to this but I get the impression, probably wrongly, that Mozilla is always a couple of dollars from bankruptcy).
- ssttoo 4y ago
  Remember also Java Applets?
  - berkes 4y ago
    I do. I wrote quite some. Then dynhtml happened through JS. Nothing like the JS we have today. Loved it. But both java applets and JS was mostly open. I recall you could open most applets and get the Java code or some form of it, rather easy. But it might simply be that concealment wasn't important back then. Idk.

berkes 4y ago

> The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential Oh, but it could have been far, far worse. We almost lost the web to Adobe/Macromedia/Flash. And then almost again to activeX. At least we still have the open, accessible, extensible web standards. Only that the top-layer: the applications and sites built have been embraced by a few monopolies. I'm rooting for WASM (because of my dislike for JS) but I'm also cautious for one of the FAANG taking wasm and re-trying the old flash/activeX trick again, but now with a "only runs on android" or "requires azure certification" angle via WASM.

teddyh 4y ago
What will probably happen is the even older “Best viewed on Google Chrome” gambit. I.e. web sites will technically all be viewable with what are technically open standards, but they will all change so fast, and there will be so many of them, so that the only browser anybody can realistically use is Google Chrome. And if a network can be only accessed with the product from one company, then that company controls that network.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  I thought this had already happened. WebKit (and it’s forks) has eaten almost all the things already hasn’t it? (FireFox stands as a lone exception to this but I get the impression, probably wrongly, that Mozilla is always a couple of dollars from bankruptcy).
ssttoo 4y ago
Remember also Java Applets?
- berkes 4y ago
  I do. I wrote quite some. Then dynhtml happened through JS. Nothing like the JS we have today. Loved it. But both java applets and JS was mostly open. I recall you could open most applets and get the Java code or some form of it, rather easy. But it might simply be that concealment wasn't important back then. Idk.