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Love it — I think something of value was lost when we collectively decided in 2005 that everyone’s page should look exactly the same (i.e. TheFacebook™ profiles

Love it — I think something of value was lost when we collectively decided in 2005 that everyone’s page should look exactly the same (i.e. TheFacebook™ profiles) Sadly that, combined with the changes Google made to deprioritize results from personal sites like these, all but destroyed these neat bespoke pages.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I mean, that's because Facebook Pages are cheap. Businesses don't want to spend money on anything they don't have to, and people aren't much different. The argument for learning to write even basic HTML only to upload it even to something like Amazon S3 (free) and direct a web address to it (not free) or spend money on hosting to not have to learn how to deposit files into an S3 bucket is a LOT of time to spend to accomplish this task. Instead, you can outsource all of that time, effort, and labor to Facebook who already built a website. And yeah, it sucks ass and it's full of undesirable people, but it's free and it accomplishes the same goal. Google, meanwhile, sees that everyone is setting up Facebook profiles instead of websites because it's easier, and now businesses websites are sometimes quite out of date compared to their Facebook pages so they begin prioritizing results from network sites over regular pages. And now people can follow their favorite businesses on Facebook and be at least somewhat assured they'll always know if, for example, they have to close up one day unexpectedly and won't be doing business again until tomorrow. This is not meant to be an argument against the cheap web, mind: I'm just saying that people trend towards what is the lowest-cost option (by money, time, effort, or any combination) and use it because it works and gets the job done. I still keep a website, because I value my independence and have no interest in having my thoughts dumbed down to suit the preferences of corporate America. But the vast majority of people do not care about that (until they get smacked with a ban-hammer anyway) and will just stick to the easy option. Also, I would state: there is no reason we couldn't have a social media site that functions as a public utility instead of a for-profit corporation. We could just... have a Facebook that doesn't need to piss everyone off to make money. Social media without profit motive could be a massive boon to our society.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. OK, a Wordpress site then. Now I'm dealing with introductory rates that shoot up after a year unless I just use a standard VPS and now I'm having to do a lot of stuff myself. And, as far as I can tell, most of the literally thousands of templates/themes out there don't make it straightforward to just have a nice homepage with a simple blog post that doesn't require a high-resolution photograph to go with it. I'm probably settling on just sticking with Blogger using a new theme. I'm not really happy with that solution--but I'm not a web designer. I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    > The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. I mean, there's a floor right? The floor being that you need a server that can respond to HTTP requests, yours or otherwise; you need said server accessible from an address to which you can map a DNS record to; and you need HTML files that can be served in response to that request. Few of these are free, but many can be had for very cheap. > So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Amazon S3 with Cloudflare in front of it and a domain name. Probably about $15 per year unless you manage enough traffic to get billed by Amazon. > Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. I think that's a little reductive. HTML sites can be just about anything and they can be quite fancy if you're willing to put the time in to learn something like Jekyll. As a side hustle I maintain a couple of basic HTML websites for local businesses, and just bill them for the annuals + the time I spend tweaking things for them, which thanks to my workflows, isn't much. > OK, a Wordpress site then. .... I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love. I mean, that's just the platform-ification of the Internet described. There's a floor of technical requirements and software experience required to publish on the Internet, and the vast majority of people like yourself do not possess it and aren't interested in acquiring it. That's fine, but it's akin to saying "I want to print a newsletter but don't want to learn how printers work." You've selected yourself out of your own goal. HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript can make dynamic and beautiful websites. But it's not without a learning curve, and if your response to that is "well I want to do this without learning HTML/CSS/JS" well, that's the central conceit of Facebook pages, Shopify websites, and Wordpress.
goles 3y ago
In retrospect a lot of the customization you could do on MySpace was madness by todays standard. Being able to set your own background, color, font, potentially animated, with auto-playing music of your choice was like letting the average person be a web developer.
- lumb63 3y ago
  I don't understand this sentiment. It implies that an arbitrary web developer, who has never met someone, knows better how the want to portray that person, than that person themselves. It also feels very anti-hacker to me. A core ethos across open source software is that each user should be in charge of how their software behaves, should they choose to be. That includes the lowly "average person" who is not a web developer.
8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
Sounds like this article is advocating for everyones page to look the same. If every page is built using simple technology, the user can style it themselves, not the developer.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

I mean, that's because Facebook Pages are cheap. Businesses don't want to spend money on anything they don't have to, and people aren't much different. The argument for learning to write even basic HTML only to upload it even to something like Amazon S3 (free) and direct a web address to it (not free) or spend money on hosting to not have to learn how to deposit files into an S3 bucket is a LOT of time to spend to accomplish this task. Instead, you can outsource all of that time, effort, and labor to Facebook who already built a website. And yeah, it sucks ass and it's full of undesirable people, but it's free and it accomplishes the same goal. Google, meanwhile, sees that everyone is setting up Facebook profiles instead of websites because it's easier, and now businesses websites are sometimes quite out of date compared to their Facebook pages so they begin prioritizing results from network sites over regular pages. And now people can follow their favorite businesses on Facebook and be at least somewhat assured they'll always know if, for example, they have to close up one day unexpectedly and won't be doing business again until tomorrow. This is not meant to be an argument against the cheap web, mind: I'm just saying that people trend towards what is the lowest-cost option (by money, time, effort, or any combination) and use it because it works and gets the job done. I still keep a website, because I value my independence and have no interest in having my thoughts dumbed down to suit the preferences of corporate America. But the vast majority of people do not care about that (until they get smacked with a ban-hammer anyway) and will just stick to the easy option. Also, I would state: there is no reason we couldn't have a social media site that functions as a public utility instead of a for-profit corporation. We could just... have a Facebook that doesn't need to piss everyone off to make money. Social media without profit motive could be a massive boon to our society.

ghaff 3y ago
The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. OK, a Wordpress site then. Now I'm dealing with introductory rates that shoot up after a year unless I just use a standard VPS and now I'm having to do a lot of stuff myself. And, as far as I can tell, most of the literally thousands of templates/themes out there don't make it straightforward to just have a nice homepage with a simple blog post that doesn't require a high-resolution photograph to go with it. I'm probably settling on just sticking with Blogger using a new theme. I'm not really happy with that solution--but I'm not a web designer. I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. I mean, there's a floor right? The floor being that you need a server that can respond to HTTP requests, yours or otherwise; you need said server accessible from an address to which you can map a DNS record to; and you need HTML files that can be served in response to that request. Few of these are free, but many can be had for very cheap. > So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Amazon S3 with Cloudflare in front of it and a domain name. Probably about $15 per year unless you manage enough traffic to get billed by Amazon. > Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. I think that's a little reductive. HTML sites can be just about anything and they can be quite fancy if you're willing to put the time in to learn something like Jekyll. As a side hustle I maintain a couple of basic HTML websites for local businesses, and just bill them for the annuals + the time I spend tweaking things for them, which thanks to my workflows, isn't much. > OK, a Wordpress site then. .... I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love. I mean, that's just the platform-ification of the Internet described. There's a floor of technical requirements and software experience required to publish on the Internet, and the vast majority of people like yourself do not possess it and aren't interested in acquiring it. That's fine, but it's akin to saying "I want to print a newsletter but don't want to learn how printers work." You've selected yourself out of your own goal. HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript can make dynamic and beautiful websites. But it's not without a learning curve, and if your response to that is "well I want to do this without learning HTML/CSS/JS" well, that's the central conceit of Facebook pages, Shopify websites, and Wordpress.

goles 3y ago

In retrospect a lot of the customization you could do on MySpace was madness by todays standard. Being able to set your own background, color, font, potentially animated, with auto-playing music of your choice was like letting the average person be a web developer.

lumb63 3y ago
I don't understand this sentiment. It implies that an arbitrary web developer, who has never met someone, knows better how the want to portray that person, than that person themselves. It also feels very anti-hacker to me. A core ethos across open source software is that each user should be in charge of how their software behaves, should they choose to be. That includes the lowly "average person" who is not a web developer.

8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago

Sounds like this article is advocating for everyones page to look the same. If every page is built using simple technology, the user can style it themselves, not the developer.