4 ms·

As much as I'd like to see a web 1.0 revival, this won't happen. The traffic is controlled by Google and social networks. Most people don't have the skills nee

by nicbou 2y ago

As much as I'd like to see a web 1.0 revival, this won't happen. The traffic is controlled by Google and social networks. Most people don't have the skills needed to run their own website. A lot of valuable content is created by people without these sorts of skills.

QuarterReptile 2y ago
If the web progresses in a bad enough direction, it will happen.
smallmancontrov 2y ago
That's a function of technology. It would absolutely be possible to integrate something like Nextcloud into operating systems or devices. It will never happen, because every party in a position to do such an integration is also in a position to become a middleman and extract money, which is much more profitable.
- komali2 2y ago
  I'm curious what an integration would look like. Are you thinking Google Play Services but Nextcloud Services instead?
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    Opera, before it got Chrome-ified, had a built in web server. I used it to share files with my buddies. Super simple. Didn't support scripts IIRC but with webassembly it doesn't have to be too difficult to support something like NextCloud I'd think.
- Barrin92 2y ago
  >That's a function of technology No, it's a function of economics. Division of labour still works. It is not more profitable to run your own cloud and pay for your own traffic when you're specialized in producing content. It makes financial sense to pay someone to do that for you. The middleman is cheaper, that's why they exist. The internet looks like it does for only one reason, in any system of increasing complexity there are increased returns to specialization and trade.
n_ary 2y ago
I was part of some social computing facilities and burnt my own and friends’ money to offer basic stuff for people to publish basic html pages, small twitter like service, one nextcloud and one invidious instance. Within weeks, nextcloud was filled with pirated content sharing, html pages were hosting fake bank login phishing pages and moderation became horror. Our colo provider sent us some written warnings to sort this out immediately. While I still inspire to launch a twitter 1.0 plain old less featured version, but the thought of moderation kills my motivation immediately. :( There are still public computing facilities here, like sdfeu, envs.net etc, am not sure how they handle the moderation of spam and pirated content attack.
- zoul 2y ago
  As a positive example, Mastodon seems to work fine.
  - bragr 2y ago
    Mastodon effectively democratizes the moderation to the huge group of server admins - who do a massive amount of unpaid labor. It definitely keeps some people away, and burns others out.
    - DANmode 2y ago
      I'm still focused on the "effectively" part, since the other part has always been endemic to the Internet (and communities!).
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >the other part has always been endemic to the Internet (and communities!). Indeed. But unlike machines (and AI, in the future), humans don't scale well. managing a potential audience of 10000 user with a few hundred commenters focused in a few countrie is an order of magnitude different from the millions of users with thousands of commenters and a very well established malicious actors with no respect for community. It's more work, for more people, for less appreciation. It's also harder than ever to pay for labor as a small community, unless you are very well off.
packetlost 2y ago
I feel like making it easy to how your own website is something that can be solved with an ingress service (Tailscale funnel?) + DNS management and a small box that someone buys and leaves in their living room. It doesn't have to require any technical expertise, you just need to build a lot of things to make it that way.
- idontwantthis 2y ago
  I’ve thought about making my own homepage to replace my instagram/fb and share my life with my friends, but how would anyone find it? I guess I could email everyone and tell them. I’ve wondered if there is a way I could easily get that to the top of Google for my name, but there are a few famous people with my name.
  - packetlost 2y ago
    I feel like Fediverse/Mastodon and/or Bluesky sort of solve this problem though. Fediverse in particular has a pretty rich ecosystem with niches for Twitter-like, Instagram-like, Reddit-like, and (I think) even Facebook-like. There's also RSS feeds
    - TylerE 2y ago
      I look at those Fediverse things and they just feel like toys. Horrible, confusing UX. Very limited feature sets. Mediocre performance, at best. if that's supposed to be the future, call me a luddite I guess.
  - nytesky 2y ago
    You could get the URL out. I would like to have it require some authentication, and I don’t see too many easy ways to add authentication. I use Google Workspace for hosting and I guess it would default to Google IDs? Does SquareSpace provide access control for low cost accounts?
  - volkk 2y ago
    does it make sense to have a "social" network that in essence is _only_ a directory? looking up someone works well, and links to some external site. full stop
tivert 2y ago
>> The gold rush is over - private equity is going to squeeze every little drop from the companies that have been built and we will move on to Web 3.0 - which will be just like web 1.0 - self-hosting, link directories, newsletters, and guestbooks. > As much as I'd like to see a web 1.0 revival, this won't happen. > The traffic is controlled by Google and social networks. Maybe Web 1.0 won't return as the "dominant culture," but I wonder if something like it could return as a subculture. > Most people don't have the skills needed to run their own website. A lot of valuable content is created by people without these sorts of skills. Maybe we just need an new MS Frontpage for the new millennium?
- rovr138 2y ago
  I know someone that just has a folder with word docs and exports them to html With so many static site generators, I wonder how hard it’d be. Not that it’s simple, just thinking that an opinionated structure, a gui, and gluing it all together.
- manuelmoreale 2y ago
  > Maybe Web 1.0 won't return as the "dominant culture," but I wonder if something like it could return as a subculture. I’m shamelessly link to this thing I’m running[0] because I personally believe that subculture is already (still?) there and I’m doing what I can to help other people discover this fact. Just recently I added a guestbook to my site and I’m having fun seeing other people doing the same. Webrings are also doing a comeback. I have hope for a return of a more personal web, even as just a small subset of the whole web. [0] https://peopleandblogs.com/ https://peopleandblogs.com/
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  there's nothing technological stopping a subculture. It's just that network effects are extremely strong. That and financial incentives. Substacks seems to be the most successful "web 1" implemenation in the past decade, but that still monetizes the idea (anthetical to a web 1 era).
KuriousCat 2y ago
How hard is it come up with community run maker spaces supported by the city for putting such things together? Not every thing has to be owned by large private companies.
- jadtz 2y ago
  Libraries are a good starting point for your idea, but they are already being defunded.
- mtnGoat 2y ago
  As someone who works with a non profit who does this… don’t ask the city, they rarely care about thing’s like this. They will talk about support, but it’s talk. Most are too involved with crazy politics, campaigning, etc. Better to seek out other non-profits and community services to work with.
iFreilicht 2y ago
I have been dreaming of creating a mixed hardware/cloud service that would make this possible again in today's internet. Basically, you can open an account and get your own domain and nextcloud + mastodon + wordpress instance. You pay based on how much storage you use. If you want, you can get your entire cloud shipped to your home, attach it to a router there, and then you only pay for my service to be the gateway to the server you have at home. All the data is at home, you have full control. Of course, the defaults would have to be basically zero-management. But people would be able to choose how much control over their own data they want versus how convenient they want it to be. Right now, it's pretty much all or nothing.

by nicbou 2y ago

QuarterReptile 2y ago

If the web progresses in a bad enough direction, it will happen.

smallmancontrov 2y ago

That's a function of technology. It would absolutely be possible to integrate something like Nextcloud into operating systems or devices. It will never happen, because every party in a position to do such an integration is also in a position to become a middleman and extract money, which is much more profitable.

komali2 2y ago
I'm curious what an integration would look like. Are you thinking Google Play Services but Nextcloud Services instead?
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Opera, before it got Chrome-ified, had a built in web server. I used it to share files with my buddies. Super simple. Didn't support scripts IIRC but with webassembly it doesn't have to be too difficult to support something like NextCloud I'd think.
Barrin92 2y ago
>That's a function of technology No, it's a function of economics. Division of labour still works. It is not more profitable to run your own cloud and pay for your own traffic when you're specialized in producing content. It makes financial sense to pay someone to do that for you. The middleman is cheaper, that's why they exist. The internet looks like it does for only one reason, in any system of increasing complexity there are increased returns to specialization and trade.

n_ary 2y ago

I was part of some social computing facilities and burnt my own and friends’ money to offer basic stuff for people to publish basic html pages, small twitter like service, one nextcloud and one invidious instance. Within weeks, nextcloud was filled with pirated content sharing, html pages were hosting fake bank login phishing pages and moderation became horror. Our colo provider sent us some written warnings to sort this out immediately. While I still inspire to launch a twitter 1.0 plain old less featured version, but the thought of moderation kills my motivation immediately. :( There are still public computing facilities here, like sdfeu, envs.net etc, am not sure how they handle the moderation of spam and pirated content attack.

zoul 2y ago
As a positive example, Mastodon seems to work fine.
- bragr 2y ago
  Mastodon effectively democratizes the moderation to the huge group of server admins - who do a massive amount of unpaid labor. It definitely keeps some people away, and burns others out.
  - DANmode 2y ago
    I'm still focused on the "effectively" part, since the other part has always been endemic to the Internet (and communities!).
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >the other part has always been endemic to the Internet (and communities!). Indeed. But unlike machines (and AI, in the future), humans don't scale well. managing a potential audience of 10000 user with a few hundred commenters focused in a few countrie is an order of magnitude different from the millions of users with thousands of commenters and a very well established malicious actors with no respect for community. It's more work, for more people, for less appreciation. It's also harder than ever to pay for labor as a small community, unless you are very well off.

packetlost 2y ago

I feel like making it easy to how your own website is something that can be solved with an ingress service (Tailscale funnel?) + DNS management and a small box that someone buys and leaves in their living room. It doesn't have to require any technical expertise, you just need to build a lot of things to make it that way.

idontwantthis 2y ago
I’ve thought about making my own homepage to replace my instagram/fb and share my life with my friends, but how would anyone find it? I guess I could email everyone and tell them. I’ve wondered if there is a way I could easily get that to the top of Google for my name, but there are a few famous people with my name.
- packetlost 2y ago
  I feel like Fediverse/Mastodon and/or Bluesky sort of solve this problem though. Fediverse in particular has a pretty rich ecosystem with niches for Twitter-like, Instagram-like, Reddit-like, and (I think) even Facebook-like. There's also RSS feeds
  - TylerE 2y ago
    I look at those Fediverse things and they just feel like toys. Horrible, confusing UX. Very limited feature sets. Mediocre performance, at best. if that's supposed to be the future, call me a luddite I guess.
- nytesky 2y ago
  You could get the URL out. I would like to have it require some authentication, and I don’t see too many easy ways to add authentication. I use Google Workspace for hosting and I guess it would default to Google IDs? Does SquareSpace provide access control for low cost accounts?
- volkk 2y ago
  does it make sense to have a "social" network that in essence is _only_ a directory? looking up someone works well, and links to some external site. full stop

tivert 2y ago

>> The gold rush is over - private equity is going to squeeze every little drop from the companies that have been built and we will move on to Web 3.0 - which will be just like web 1.0 - self-hosting, link directories, newsletters, and guestbooks. > As much as I'd like to see a web 1.0 revival, this won't happen. > The traffic is controlled by Google and social networks. Maybe Web 1.0 won't return as the "dominant culture," but I wonder if something like it could return as a subculture. > Most people don't have the skills needed to run their own website. A lot of valuable content is created by people without these sorts of skills. Maybe we just need an new MS Frontpage for the new millennium?

rovr138 2y ago
I know someone that just has a folder with word docs and exports them to html With so many static site generators, I wonder how hard it’d be. Not that it’s simple, just thinking that an opinionated structure, a gui, and gluing it all together.
manuelmoreale 2y ago
> Maybe Web 1.0 won't return as the "dominant culture," but I wonder if something like it could return as a subculture. I’m shamelessly link to this thing I’m running[0] because I personally believe that subculture is already (still?) there and I’m doing what I can to help other people discover this fact. Just recently I added a guestbook to my site and I’m having fun seeing other people doing the same. Webrings are also doing a comeback. I have hope for a return of a more personal web, even as just a small subset of the whole web. [0] https://peopleandblogs.com/ https://peopleandblogs.com/
johnnyanmac 2y ago
there's nothing technological stopping a subculture. It's just that network effects are extremely strong. That and financial incentives. Substacks seems to be the most successful "web 1" implemenation in the past decade, but that still monetizes the idea (anthetical to a web 1 era).

KuriousCat 2y ago

How hard is it come up with community run maker spaces supported by the city for putting such things together? Not every thing has to be owned by large private companies.

jadtz 2y ago
Libraries are a good starting point for your idea, but they are already being defunded.
mtnGoat 2y ago
As someone who works with a non profit who does this… don’t ask the city, they rarely care about thing’s like this. They will talk about support, but it’s talk. Most are too involved with crazy politics, campaigning, etc. Better to seek out other non-profits and community services to work with.

iFreilicht 2y ago

I have been dreaming of creating a mixed hardware/cloud service that would make this possible again in today's internet. Basically, you can open an account and get your own domain and nextcloud + mastodon + wordpress instance. You pay based on how much storage you use. If you want, you can get your entire cloud shipped to your home, attach it to a router there, and then you only pay for my service to be the gateway to the server you have at home. All the data is at home, you have full control. Of course, the defaults would have to be basically zero-management. But people would be able to choose how much control over their own data they want versus how convenient they want it to be. Right now, it's pretty much all or nothing.