I've tried to influence eCommerce to have a little bit less grift where I have influence. You can absolutely have a solid shopping website without the newsletter signups, re-targeting and tracking, sneaky cart items and whatnot. Commerce is a core part of our society, and it doesn't have to be a grift just because it's online.
But it's a tough, tough sell. For a business owner who sees the internet as just a tool their business uses, the state of the internet isn't their concern. It can even feel a bit like a black box to some people, with online customers being about as sentient as NPCs in their minds. I once had a client who was sending an email list marketing emails -twice a day-. Every time he did it, he saw a handful of sales, so he would just do it again, get a handful more. How people felt about the emails didn't even cross his mind.
> I once had a client who was sending an email list marketing emails -twice a day-. Every time he did it, he saw a handful of sales, so he would just do it again, get a handful more. How people felt about the emails didn't even cross his mind.
I [briefly] worked with an entrepreneur like your client. It was all about collecting his leads and getting a fraction of them to pay. To him, the Internet was nothing but a "channel" full of human wallets that you suck money through. He even had all these physical euphemisms he used to describe his actions against his customers. We'll hit them with a popup and then convert them. Our backend will blast them with E-mail marketing and harvest some more through our partners. Oh, no! Regulation! I guess we need to consent them now so we can blast them more and hit them with another newsletter. Same "the Internet is full of NPCs to exploit" mindset. I didn't last and felt like I needed a week-long bleach shower after parting ways.
It is the same mentality that the robocallers use. Call and annoy a million people with your computer program in hopes of getting a handful to fall for your overpriced offering (assuming of course that the whole product or service isn't just a scam).
It's not a hope though, its a guarantee they will gather some easily scammed people with enough coverage. Some people are not all there perhaps and fall victim to these scams all the time. Those Nigerian prince emails that started perhaps 30 years ago wouldn't continue to be sent today, if they didn't work for a sliver of the population they routinely victimize.
If only I could convince web shops (and their web connections) that I buy every six months or so a box of batteries (for hearing aids) since a few years and that I would actually appreciate to receive a sort of periodical reminder for them, but that I do not need (hopefully) too soon another TV set and washer (that I just bought), it would be a little step in the right direction.
Or if you do it'll just change their tack from “we think you might want X, have a look at our X” to “we hear you don't want X, but let us tell you about our X and see if we can't change your mind”.
That sounds like someone who's sexual experience is mostly (or entirely) watching porn, a world where what two lesbians really want is a random bloke to join in and any claiming otherwise are in denile so he is trying to help them by pestering them…
And in the end... it is their site to be horrible with if they want.
That's the internet, that freedom includes a lot of people being free to do what they want with their site. It was that way in the "good old days" too. Just that then eCommerce and other tools were not as available.
Often in other discussions where I hear folks bemoan how "not everything has to be an app". I agree, but it's also rando company who paid for their site, their app... to be an app. They're really not interested in the rando guy's opinion on how his site should be devolved who isn't buying from him anyway.
I do what I can to shepherd people I work with away from annoying things, but in the end it is their site.
I really like the author's sentiment, but for an article published in 2022 it seems to not really consider the last twenty years or so. Their references to a better, less exploitative internet seem to exist in a 2000-bubble. Today, videogames are right smack dab in the middle of what he perceives as the big grift, and I'm sure books would be too if only publishers had an easy to implement model for doing so.
I'd be more interested if the author gave clear examples of where this works in today's internet, because saying you are part of the Geocities or Neopets forums side of the internet is like the old man yelling on his lawn lamenting how much better things were when he was young.
I haven't seen it happen with novels (yet), but I was a little outraged to buy a weekly planner that featured mindfulness exercises and such to focus on each week…and find it laden with advertisements for the author's website, companion videos, etc.
I have no interest in using the internet for that; I bought a dead tree specifically to avoid my computer for a minute.
Just because they uses old examples doesn't invalidate their point, although yes, following the rise of Gacha games in Japan and Asian markets essentially a lot of games today key in some gacha like elements.
Most of the pages on the internet I visit is non-grifty, non-explitative type. Start from something like hackaday.com, and then subscribe to RSS feeds of the small websites you like.
(Of course adblocker is a must... But living without adblocker on today's web is like walking barefoot in NY)
> Whenever I tell civilians that I’m a web designer I get the sense
that they place me in that other category
It's hurtful when institutions, ideals and identities that you've
aligned yourself with turn rotten, and sully you by implication. I
went through a patch of never telling anyone I once worked at BBC,
even though it's a great institution and I loved my work and
colleagues there, because who would leave you alone with their kids!?
Recently I've stopped saying I'm a "computer" scientist/techie except
to other techies. Random strangers at parties just assume you're up to
something nefarious. A writer maybe, who happens to be a computer
guy. I get most warmth and connection from identifying as a
"hacker". Most people then immediately raise the ethical question of
whose "side" I am on. The good guys, of course. I feel for web
designers, because I don't see much good left about the modern "web"
to stand up for.
Can't hide that. I have noticeably gray hair, and a few sags and bags. I look my age.
That brings on a huge prejudice, from my fellow travelers in tech. Despite being very respectful of women, people of color, gender identification, etc., they have absolutely no hesitation in calling me "OK boomer," and assuming that I don't have any idea of what I'm doing, in today's tech scene.
It used to absolutely infuriate me, but I've learned to accept it, as I am no longer looking for work, and have come to realize that I'm just not wanted. I won't go, where I'm not wanted. I stopped attending meetups, because I was getting tired of the "circle of avoidance," and people (even other "boomers") avoiding eye contact, etc.
Just for the record, I work harder, these days, than I ever did, and I learn something new every day.
Otherwise, I have plenty of hooks for others to sneer at, and I've had them all my career (I started as a self-taught EE, and have been self-taught for over 30 years, in software -that is "even worse" than a bootcamp; I'm also very open, friendly, and non-competitive, which elicits contempt).
Also, for the record, I believe in Integrity, Honor, Honesty, Kindness, and Open-mindedness, which also elicits contempt. People think Honorable folks are stupid and naive.
> assuming that I don't have any idea of what I'm doing, in today's
tech scene.
They don't assume that. They fear that you do. Today's "tech scene" is
very much "just keep moving and don't ask any awkward questions." Old
people bring inconveniences like wisdom, depth of knowledge and
experience of how things can go wrong, caution and so on. That's not
welcome at the kids party.
I think that if I had written the book in the past decade, perhaps Bateman would have been working in Silicon Valley, living in Cupertino with excursions into San Francisco or down to Big Sur to the Post Ranch Inn and palling around with Zuckerberg and dining at the French Laundry, or lunching with Reed Hastings at Manresa in Los Gatos, wearing a Yeezy hoodie and teasing girls on Tinder.
-- Bret Easton Ellis (2016)
Nice. There's some other tasty nuggets in that piece;
"...disgusted with the values then and what it meant to be a man - a
successful man - but where else was I going to go? ... The rage I felt
over what was being extolled as success."
Tones of Palahniuk maybe. Inside every Linus Torvalds or Richard
Stallman is a painfully socialised, sublimated Zuckerberg that could
burst out in moment of weakness.
An anecdote that I often tell as a joke, but is true: When I lived in San Francisco I worked in IT for a bank. I quickly learned that when people asked me what I did, it was safer to say "I'm in banking" than "I work in IT." This was even true not long after the Wells Fargo scandal, and in SF people would probably be most likely to assume I worked for them!
Say what you will about the banks, at least they're the evil people know, I guess.
Sigh, I remember this other internet and I wasn't even a kid any more then. I remember half of it going down because of the Morris worm. Actually noticing that things had become unresponsive, before the news of the worm broke. And that was a big deal, a program abusing the wide-open, trusted nature of the internet then, and yet, the Morris worm was more part of the culture than an attack on it.
I remember staring in disbelief as the same Canter & Siegel spam showed up in every single Usenet newsgroup to which I was subscribed, and I remember the firestorm of repercussions, little realizing at the time that the spam was the new normal, and the outrage would over time get lost in the noise.
I remember enthusiastically making my own personal web site, my own little contribution to the "old" internet, and how happy I was to finally get some hosting that didn't put a banner ad - a single static banner ad - at the top of my site.
I remember Facebook being mostly about friends keeping in touch, and posting life events and cute pictures of the kids.
The "old" internet went away in stages. Or more correctly, got drowned out. It was maybe 1% of the size of the current internet, and if you look hard enough it's probably mostly still there... just drowned out by 99% that is noise.
> I am on the side of Neopets forums and Geocities and uploading mp3s of shitty songs onto your iWeb website. I’m on the side of blogging and learning about ARIA roles and finding a small circle of nerds
Worth reading 'What is the Small Web?'[0]
It's worth having your own little corner of the Internet that isn't social media, but a site you own and maintain with care, a labor of love, so to speak. And you have full control over it. You can't get 'suspended' for sharing an edgy meme.
I was talking about Facebook's dreaded 'Community Standards' here, to be specific. I've had content censored that I acquired from Facebook itself, and the original post where I got it from wasn't taken down from Facebook. Such hypocrisy.
I've done this enough times that Facebook threatened to permaban me from their platform. So I run my little corner of the net where I can post what I want (within reason). By 'Edgy meme' I mean something that a behemoth like Facebook deems censorable.
Domain registrars go so far as to drop clients. See the DailyStormer as an example.
You could host via IP only and then control a separate, static domain that has your most recent IP. Not sure ISPs are allowed to drop customers for edgy chat. I would hope they are seen as a utility in that instance.
For anything controversial, getting dropped by Cloudflare is a bunch larger concern than getting dropped by your registrar. You'll be DDOSed offline immediately and there's no Cloudflare.ag alternative to turn to. Just look at what happened to the scumbags at Kiwi Farms.
KF came back eventually. It took a bit of work on their part, but then you are unlikely to face as much pressure as they did. They even kept their original domain name, so any bookmarks or in-bound links work as they did before after a month long vacation.
That website never went down for more than, like, a day (and remained on Tor even then). It weathered that storm and remains online on its original domain.
Also, part of the grift of the modern internet is people charging money to run your own site. You can run your own Wordpress box, but it'll probably get hacked, because Wordpress is a pile of dependencies with a huge attack surface area. So you end up paying money to Automattic to run your WP instance for you. Meanwhile, if you carefully craft your own website, you can just not include obvious things like log4j and be free from 99.9% of exploits.
Well you could go with a static site and host on Github Pages[0], which is free (as of time of writing). You have to learn Jekyll[1] though if you're running a blog, which is a way to publish without manually editing templates and god forbid, writing some HTML.
Then you just buy a domain for 10 years in advance and you're set. 10 years is a long time in tech and is plenty of time to produce meaningful content that makes a dent.
But traditionally your statement is why common carrier status has existed.
Even without the stronger protection of common carrier laws providers further down the stack are much less likely to take action against you. The difference in probabilities matters even though when it isn't as strong as clear protection under the law.
Just like huge public libraries or our 200 channel, 24/7 television systems; there are some real 'gems' out there on the Internet but they are drowned out by the 95%+ of worthless drivel. The task is finding meaningful content in a world of mostly pablum, scams, and other harmful content.
With hundreds of millions of websites, you absolutely need search capabilities like Google (at least how it was in its early days) in order to find relevant information. The problem of course, is that the search sites are run by algorithms that attempt to direct your search based on criteria that is often the opposite of what you desire.
It is definitely a 'Centralized vs Decentralized' situation. The Internet was originally designed to be a decentralized structure where every site was a pure 'peer-to-peer' connection where it was so easy to jump from place to place without being re-routed to the central players. Now all the big sites like Facebook are designed to be walled-gardens that want to control everything you see.
Although we have more websites now than ever it feels like the internet of today is much smaller, since people are increasingly funneled into the same popular websites that control most of the market share. I used to visit new websites daily in the old days, now I just loop between a few big destinations.
I don’t think most people even know how to search for websites anymore that are not blessed by algorithms. Manual search skills have atrophied. The concept of websites having a dedicated section of links to similar sites of interest is extinct, perhaps even penalized by big search engines. Only a small subset of users still share hidden gems amongst themselves, speaking in hushed tones. Purveyors of the old web.
There was a ton of crap. There are many, many more tons of crap today. Tik Tok will practically mainline it into your veins. Instagram and other social media sites exist for any other media types you might want. You don't need to search for it; the feeds will hand it to you. But I don't think of that as any worse than "link rings".
The big aggregators may be those "same popular web sites" but the content is provided by the users, same as on any geocities site. They've just abstracted out the content management parts, so that the creators of that random crap can create random crap.
I hear this a lot on Hacker News, and I can't help but wonder how much of it is "I loved the days when everybody on the Internet had to create their own web site, so their tastes were similar to mine because I'm also the sort of person with the skills and interest in creating my own web site." And if so, I understand why people on Hacker News might find that appealing, though I personally appreciate the greater breadth of available content now.
The independent internet that's driven by passion and a desire to build is still out there, it's just getting increasingly hard to find.
Search is ultimately the tool that ties the internet together; after all, you can't consume content that you can't find in the first place. But in the modern, corporation-first internet, Google is highly incentivized to not surface independent websites, for a variety of reasons:
* Websites run Google ads, so they don't punish sites that run tons of ads, as a user-focused search engine might.
* Large, well-known websites are safe to surface to the top. Surfacing the "wrong" site for a highly political topic could get Google in trouble.[0]
* ... and frankly, most users are looking for these sites anyway. There's way more teenagers and non-techies using Google for a quick answer on a cell phone than there are people trying to find interesting independent blogs.
* For-profit sites are more likely to invest in SEO than a small, for-passion website.
All this adds up to an independent internet that's there, but mostly hidden.
I honestly think in the too-near future we'll see the independent internet relegated to Usenet status. Major websites and other businesses (who are willing to pay a fee/have legal contact info) can opt-in to be part of an ISP's internet package, and anything outside will be inaccessible. The recent KiwiFarms debacle makes me think this is coming sooner than we think, as this is a very easy way to keep "harmful" content inaccessible.
[0] This is why Google image search is so incredibly useless now; there was a media blitz a few years after its release where journalists found it would give racist responses with certain pictures of Black people. It's safer for Google to just make it so general that it's basically worthless.
The relegation is already underway. Google has already decided that HTTP-only sites without recent updates don’t belong in top results. Lots of great work from just a few years ago is invisible to most internet users, while “content aggregators” and monolithic platforms soak up all the eyeballs.
You have to use something else entirely (like Wiby) to find the perfectly usable, valuable work that isn’t on a major platform. It /may as well/ be Usenet for how available it is.
Small sites can fight against this by bringing back pre-google concepts like webrings and affiliated sites. Very few people will find your niche site, so it's important to help them find other related niche sites.
I've seen webrings brought up repeatedly here on HN. Did those ever work well? I always saw them as one of the ever-increasing number of grifts mentioned in the article. It seemed like when you joined one, it didn't really help traffic to your site, but did help redirect the traffic you already had coming to your page to other sites in the ring. I tried it once and found it didn't increase traffic at all, but that's just one data point, so maybe there were some that worked as intended?
Web rings are more of a long term community building tool than one weird trick to boost traffic. A thriving online community does bring organic traffic, but it takes a long time to build.
Also really doubtful the people who leave using the webring were going to stay around anyway. It's probably better to work on building a compelling website than to turn it into a maze with no exits. Making people feel trapped is not going to make them want to come back.
I think it's interesting he had this take from young. As I've grown up I've seen the internet change from whatever it was to whatever it is and the delta is definitely very grift-y. However I don't think it is fair to say it was always this way and I am glad that he realized that the web will be whatever we want it to be. Same with the earth.
All these "golden days" internet articles forgot about how predatory the environment was back then with how many websites were serving viruses or popups that would open faster than you can close them. It felt like a minefield. There were good spots of refuge of course but they were almost an if you know you know situation, some websites I would learn about through word of mouth in real life alone. For mainstream non techie folks, the internet was legitimately risky. You'd think you were installing the yahoo toolbar and it would just be malware. "It got a bunch of viruses and got slow" was a common reason to abandon ship and just buy a new PC.
The gig economy works well if you rent your capital (e.g AirBnB) but has poor ROI if you supply labor (Ubereats, etc.). Do you get cash for your time? Sure. But the opportunity costs are large.
I apologize I don't have a clear reference, the research project was reported through JPMC Institute[1] but my memory is coming from conversations with Fiona Grieg and Chris Wheat who were working on this topic at the JPMCI.
This isn't about the internet at all, but about music: Greil Marcus, one of the deans of rock criticism, treasures all the oddball stuff like this guy is talking about. He calls it "the old weird America."
You can still find the old weird Web. You just have to steer left when the road sign says "Big Corporate Web, this way ===>"
The title really lets it down. YouTube has been putting it in my suggestions since it came out and I've been ignoring it since it just seemed like a promo video of some business guru type. Now I know it's Dan Olsen it's on my list to watch for sure when I have time (see also his videos "In Search of a Flat Earth" on conspiracy theorists and "Line Goes Up" on NFTs and cryptocurrencies).
I like this but the internet can give you at leas as much as it can take from you and a solution to all our problems is the same as on the streets: "be the change you want to be"
I've dove relatively deep into the world of NFTs in the last few months. Not the tech side, but the selling/buying side of it. The culture can easily one-up the grift ideology of the "passive income" content production world or even the MLM niches.
The constant inundation with scams coupled with a mix of kayfabe personalities who claim to believe in something while playing the game of trying to hype up stuff for their "marks" is absolutely incredible.
I'm not watching an hour-long YouTube video if he hook is some flavor of "Yep, right there a half step above chattel slavery, we have... writing 1,000 words a day."
> And so, for the record, if I may, disrespectfully, unkindly, repeat myself once more: fuck this con, fuck this exploitation and lazy hustle, and fuck this enormous Jenga of grifts.
Does this aggressive mindset help when the hustling targets the very core of human nature? Instead of bringing back the old, why not start looking for something new that thrives in that environment?
If everything is wholesome, it's meaningless. All that hustling gives value to 'the other' internet. Now, people who participate have chosen to do so.
> Whenever I tell civilians that I’m a web designer I get the sense that they place me in that other category, that other internet I noticed as a kid. I can see it in their eyes: Ah, so you’re one of those spammers, huh?
that would be progress. right now they see the web as an "infinite source of knowledge" and proceed to google something and click an amazon link on the page purporting to have the answer.
But it's a tough, tough sell. For a business owner who sees the internet as just a tool their business uses, the state of the internet isn't their concern. It can even feel a bit like a black box to some people, with online customers being about as sentient as NPCs in their minds. I once had a client who was sending an email list marketing emails -twice a day-. Every time he did it, he saw a handful of sales, so he would just do it again, get a handful more. How people felt about the emails didn't even cross his mind.
I [briefly] worked with an entrepreneur like your client. It was all about collecting his leads and getting a fraction of them to pay. To him, the Internet was nothing but a "channel" full of human wallets that you suck money through. He even had all these physical euphemisms he used to describe his actions against his customers. We'll hit them with a popup and then convert them. Our backend will blast them with E-mail marketing and harvest some more through our partners. Oh, no! Regulation! I guess we need to consent them now so we can blast them more and hit them with another newsletter. Same "the Internet is full of NPCs to exploit" mindset. I didn't last and felt like I needed a week-long bleach shower after parting ways.
Or if you do it'll just change their tack from “we think you might want X, have a look at our X” to “we hear you don't want X, but let us tell you about our X and see if we can't change your mind”.
Me: How was your weekend?
Her: Really annoying. I want out to the neighborhood bar with my girlfriend and this guy kept hitting on me.
Me: Did you tell him that the girl you were with is your girlfriend and that you're not interested in guys?
Her: Oh hell no! If I do that, then it becomes a challenge for them and they want to prove to me they can convert me to being straight.
Me: ...
I mean has this ever worked in the history of humanity?
That's the internet, that freedom includes a lot of people being free to do what they want with their site. It was that way in the "good old days" too. Just that then eCommerce and other tools were not as available.
Often in other discussions where I hear folks bemoan how "not everything has to be an app". I agree, but it's also rando company who paid for their site, their app... to be an app. They're really not interested in the rando guy's opinion on how his site should be devolved who isn't buying from him anyway.
I do what I can to shepherd people I work with away from annoying things, but in the end it is their site.
I'd be more interested if the author gave clear examples of where this works in today's internet, because saying you are part of the Geocities or Neopets forums side of the internet is like the old man yelling on his lawn lamenting how much better things were when he was young.
I have no interest in using the internet for that; I bought a dead tree specifically to avoid my computer for a minute.
(Of course adblocker is a must... But living without adblocker on today's web is like walking barefoot in NY)
> Whenever I tell civilians that I’m a web designer I get the sense that they place me in that other category
It's hurtful when institutions, ideals and identities that you've aligned yourself with turn rotten, and sully you by implication. I went through a patch of never telling anyone I once worked at BBC, even though it's a great institution and I loved my work and colleagues there, because who would leave you alone with their kids!? Recently I've stopped saying I'm a "computer" scientist/techie except to other techies. Random strangers at parties just assume you're up to something nefarious. A writer maybe, who happens to be a computer guy. I get most warmth and connection from identifying as a "hacker". Most people then immediately raise the ethical question of whose "side" I am on. The good guys, of course. I feel for web designers, because I don't see much good left about the modern "web" to stand up for.
1. I'm a web dev (I say programmer unless they ask specifics).
2. I went to a bootcamp.
3. My age.
Even technical folks, other programmers, make too many assumptions.
Even other web devs who work at company X and can't imagine doing anything outside their processes are a pain to talk to.
Can't hide that. I have noticeably gray hair, and a few sags and bags. I look my age.
That brings on a huge prejudice, from my fellow travelers in tech. Despite being very respectful of women, people of color, gender identification, etc., they have absolutely no hesitation in calling me "OK boomer," and assuming that I don't have any idea of what I'm doing, in today's tech scene.
It used to absolutely infuriate me, but I've learned to accept it, as I am no longer looking for work, and have come to realize that I'm just not wanted. I won't go, where I'm not wanted. I stopped attending meetups, because I was getting tired of the "circle of avoidance," and people (even other "boomers") avoiding eye contact, etc.
Just for the record, I work harder, these days, than I ever did, and I learn something new every day.
Otherwise, I have plenty of hooks for others to sneer at, and I've had them all my career (I started as a self-taught EE, and have been self-taught for over 30 years, in software -that is "even worse" than a bootcamp; I'm also very open, friendly, and non-competitive, which elicits contempt).
Also, for the record, I believe in Integrity, Honor, Honesty, Kindness, and Open-mindedness, which also elicits contempt. People think Honorable folks are stupid and naive.
They don't assume that. They fear that you do. Today's "tech scene" is very much "just keep moving and don't ask any awkward questions." Old people bring inconveniences like wisdom, depth of knowledge and experience of how things can go wrong, caution and so on. That's not welcome at the kids party.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a...
"...disgusted with the values then and what it meant to be a man - a successful man - but where else was I going to go? ... The rage I felt over what was being extolled as success."
Tones of Palahniuk maybe. Inside every Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman is a painfully socialised, sublimated Zuckerberg that could burst out in moment of weakness.
Say what you will about the banks, at least they're the evil people know, I guess.
I remember staring in disbelief as the same Canter & Siegel spam showed up in every single Usenet newsgroup to which I was subscribed, and I remember the firestorm of repercussions, little realizing at the time that the spam was the new normal, and the outrage would over time get lost in the noise.
I remember enthusiastically making my own personal web site, my own little contribution to the "old" internet, and how happy I was to finally get some hosting that didn't put a banner ad - a single static banner ad - at the top of my site.
I remember Facebook being mostly about friends keeping in touch, and posting life events and cute pictures of the kids.
The "old" internet went away in stages. Or more correctly, got drowned out. It was maybe 1% of the size of the current internet, and if you look hard enough it's probably mostly still there... just drowned out by 99% that is noise.
This is something that I really forgot, but now that you mention...
Worth reading 'What is the Small Web?'[0]
It's worth having your own little corner of the Internet that isn't social media, but a site you own and maintain with care, a labor of love, so to speak. And you have full control over it. You can't get 'suspended' for sharing an edgy meme.
[0] https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/
I was talking about Facebook's dreaded 'Community Standards' here, to be specific. I've had content censored that I acquired from Facebook itself, and the original post where I got it from wasn't taken down from Facebook. Such hypocrisy.
I've done this enough times that Facebook threatened to permaban me from their platform. So I run my little corner of the net where I can post what I want (within reason). By 'Edgy meme' I mean something that a behemoth like Facebook deems censorable.
You could host via IP only and then control a separate, static domain that has your most recent IP. Not sure ISPs are allowed to drop customers for edgy chat. I would hope they are seen as a utility in that instance.
Then you just buy a domain for 10 years in advance and you're set. 10 years is a long time in tech and is plenty of time to produce meaningful content that makes a dent.
[0] https://pages.github.com/
[1] https://docs.github.com/en/pages/setting-up-a-github-pages-s...
But traditionally your statement is why common carrier status has existed.
Even without the stronger protection of common carrier laws providers further down the stack are much less likely to take action against you. The difference in probabilities matters even though when it isn't as strong as clear protection under the law.
With hundreds of millions of websites, you absolutely need search capabilities like Google (at least how it was in its early days) in order to find relevant information. The problem of course, is that the search sites are run by algorithms that attempt to direct your search based on criteria that is often the opposite of what you desire.
It is definitely a 'Centralized vs Decentralized' situation. The Internet was originally designed to be a decentralized structure where every site was a pure 'peer-to-peer' connection where it was so easy to jump from place to place without being re-routed to the central players. Now all the big sites like Facebook are designed to be walled-gardens that want to control everything you see.
I don’t think most people even know how to search for websites anymore that are not blessed by algorithms. Manual search skills have atrophied. The concept of websites having a dedicated section of links to similar sites of interest is extinct, perhaps even penalized by big search engines. Only a small subset of users still share hidden gems amongst themselves, speaking in hushed tones. Purveyors of the old web.
There was a ton of crap. There are many, many more tons of crap today. Tik Tok will practically mainline it into your veins. Instagram and other social media sites exist for any other media types you might want. You don't need to search for it; the feeds will hand it to you. But I don't think of that as any worse than "link rings".
The big aggregators may be those "same popular web sites" but the content is provided by the users, same as on any geocities site. They've just abstracted out the content management parts, so that the creators of that random crap can create random crap.
I hear this a lot on Hacker News, and I can't help but wonder how much of it is "I loved the days when everybody on the Internet had to create their own web site, so their tastes were similar to mine because I'm also the sort of person with the skills and interest in creating my own web site." And if so, I understand why people on Hacker News might find that appealing, though I personally appreciate the greater breadth of available content now.
Search is ultimately the tool that ties the internet together; after all, you can't consume content that you can't find in the first place. But in the modern, corporation-first internet, Google is highly incentivized to not surface independent websites, for a variety of reasons:
* Websites run Google ads, so they don't punish sites that run tons of ads, as a user-focused search engine might.
* Large, well-known websites are safe to surface to the top. Surfacing the "wrong" site for a highly political topic could get Google in trouble.[0]
* ... and frankly, most users are looking for these sites anyway. There's way more teenagers and non-techies using Google for a quick answer on a cell phone than there are people trying to find interesting independent blogs.
* For-profit sites are more likely to invest in SEO than a small, for-passion website.
All this adds up to an independent internet that's there, but mostly hidden.
I honestly think in the too-near future we'll see the independent internet relegated to Usenet status. Major websites and other businesses (who are willing to pay a fee/have legal contact info) can opt-in to be part of an ISP's internet package, and anything outside will be inaccessible. The recent KiwiFarms debacle makes me think this is coming sooner than we think, as this is a very easy way to keep "harmful" content inaccessible.
[0] This is why Google image search is so incredibly useless now; there was a media blitz a few years after its release where journalists found it would give racist responses with certain pictures of Black people. It's safer for Google to just make it so general that it's basically worthless.
You have to use something else entirely (like Wiby) to find the perfectly usable, valuable work that isn’t on a major platform. It /may as well/ be Usenet for how available it is.
Also really doubtful the people who leave using the webring were going to stay around anyway. It's probably better to work on building a compelling website than to turn it into a maze with no exits. Making people feel trapped is not going to make them want to come back.
The gig economy works well if you rent your capital (e.g AirBnB) but has poor ROI if you supply labor (Ubereats, etc.). Do you get cash for your time? Sure. But the opportunity costs are large.
I apologize I don't have a clear reference, the research project was reported through JPMC Institute[1] but my memory is coming from conversations with Fiona Grieg and Chris Wheat who were working on this topic at the JPMCI.
[1] https://thebusinessjournal.com/why-the-gig-economy-may-not-b...
Looks like a large unemployment/underemployment (of people) problem.
You can still find the old weird Web. You just have to steer left when the road sign says "Big Corporate Web, this way ===>"
The bit where he breaks down how these ghost writers actually need to write 1000 an hour to make a living shows how absurd and broken it all is.
The constant inundation with scams coupled with a mix of kayfabe personalities who claim to believe in something while playing the game of trying to hype up stuff for their "marks" is absolutely incredible.
I'm not watching an hour-long YouTube video if he hook is some flavor of "Yep, right there a half step above chattel slavery, we have... writing 1,000 words a day."
Does this aggressive mindset help when the hustling targets the very core of human nature? Instead of bringing back the old, why not start looking for something new that thrives in that environment?
If everything is wholesome, it's meaningless. All that hustling gives value to 'the other' internet. Now, people who participate have chosen to do so.
that would be progress. right now they see the web as an "infinite source of knowledge" and proceed to google something and click an amazon link on the page purporting to have the answer.
[0] https://www.robinrendle.com/essays/in-praise-of-shadows/
I’m aware that the author is engaged in a project that is sort of like an alternative face for the web. It’s a nice step forward.