Like fuck all the proprietary junk and versioning, and just have a bare bones HTML ASCII extranet designed to be simple and without any bugs to patch? Obviously a naive question.
But seriously, the 56k dialup world with Napster GeoCities and AOL Instant Messenger was better. Add capacitive touch screens, current data throughput infra, and lithium batteries to 1999 and we are peak Matrix internet territory. Yahoo and net navigator were better than chrome stalkerware and google digislaver fascism.
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You can. But people want more than what static sites are able to provide. Our computers and Infra are incredibly capable and we dont need to artificially limit ourselfs to static webpages.
I love browsing static blog sites but even I’ll admit I’d quickly get bored if we had no JavaScript web apps.
We can. Individual sites still exists. Simpler pages still exist. In some way, wikipedia is a large project that’s mostly “old school” (despite many attempts to change that). Old communication tools still work, mail can still be done with ease by small or even individual providers. Forums are still a thing in some communities. RSS to get informations about many sites in one place still exists and never stopped existing (it’s surprising how many recent websites still implement it). Some people still use IRC and newsgroups on a daily basis.
I’d even argue that google search, the old, simple, easy one, still exist. Look up udm14, set this in your browser, and your done. And contrary to the apparently largely accepted trend, this one still gives great results.
Firefox, despite recent attempts (that will probably keep coming) can still be trimmed to be a basic browser for the most part. Large surface to open an HTML page, bookmarks, tabs on top (fancy), and nothing else in the way. I don’t know how long this will persist, but it’s still possible.
There are many things that are still around, the presence of huge behemoths in the front row doesn’t change that. The only difference is that using the web in this manner requires a bit of involvement and a bit of work. When it was the only way to do things, people got involved and spent effort to do so. Nowadays, with large services providing one click stop to seemingly everything, most people won’t put up the effort to look somewhere else. And they don’t care about the consequences of this centralization on privacy, bias, censorship, etc.
But a lot of the old web is still available. Heck, even old reddit is still around (although the content itself is still reddit).
And it is a simpler life. Taking back control of our digital activities requires some minor involvement, but not being crushed by the endless content and notification machine is real nice in this overstressed world.
Gopher , Gemini a few other protocols exist use them
One thing that I struggle consistently is how to display images nicely.but I suspect its all my lack of css skill
Your framework? The hipster café that"s “temporarily closed” every time you need it.
Can’t easily verify on mobile, but iirc last time I inspected the html that site had a google tracker and there’s a commented line acknowledging the irony and challenges you to fight them. I could have it mistaken with another, similar site, though.
Edit: Sorry for the misinformation. The site was https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ which contained the html:
<!-- yes, I know...wanna fight about it? --> <script async="" src="//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js">Haha, there are other language versions links at the bottom. I just started Czech course at university, and I think I will send my group link some time, because it’s pretty funny (for a Polish person at least).
Because people don’t want it compared to the current Internet.
There is nothing stopping people from creating the Internet of old.
This is, sadly, the correct answer
I’ve been around since the early 1980s on BBSs. I think what OP is describing is gopher:// links which were common in the early 1990s. I recall getting news and music tablature that way, but like others said it was boring and there wasn’t much else.
To me, 1996 to 2005 was the peak of the Internet experience, especially in the early 2000s when content was increasing. Big business was still oblivious about it, and little forums were able to truly thrive on their own without being on a billion dollar platform.
Web 2.0 was when it all went to shit. I remember the look when it was happening… every website went to white webpages, tons of white space, big-ass sans serif fonts, rounded buttons, and very little actual content, just minimalist screens everywhere. Every website was doing it. I knew at the time that this was symbolic of the vacuousness of the coming Internet.
For a more modern take on gopher consider also checking out gemini if you haven’t already. It is somewhat different yet familiar.
Check out Chinese internet. There’s shit everywhere.
It’s
vs 
Wait, are we suppose to be in favor of the first one? I think like maybe a 25% tone down/declutter of the one on the right is a good sweet spot that’s comfy and livable.
First one is elegant but has no charm or personality. Second one feels like people are living there and enjoying it.
First one says “i have money but no real friends”. :)
They still use web badges and sometimes lack https
I run a website where my community and I all contribute to a free shared database that houses settings for machines we can use. I don’t know how I’d really do that without managing every single submission manually. I think that like all things there’s a way to use js responsibly.
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No worries it wasn’t an attack on you or your totally fair question. I’m no where near knowledgeable enough to give any valid responses to the inquiry, I just thought I’d share why I feel like I (we?) need it. I wanted to do X for my community and I was told I need Y to do it, thus for me for this use case its necessary. That’s all I was sayin.
Back in my day, we created more complex html forms using bash on the server. None of this fancy pants modern stuff like Perl and fast-cgi. What’s js?
Now get off my lawn
😂
Except we do, in so many ways. I think one simple example is RSS.
https://marginalia-search.com/
“The need for discovery
Nothing you do to try to make the web a better place matters if nobody can find what you did. There are a lot of precious websites out there that deserve an audience, but instead are languishing in obscurity.
This makes alternative discovery mechanisms an urgent priority of the free and independent web, both document search as well as blog and RSS-feed discovery.”
⚜︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
I honestly tend to think that instead of using search engines where you already have to know what you’re looking for, it might be better to use something like lemmy where you can advertise what you made with a post in an appropriate community.
I honestly tend to think that instead of using search engines where you already have to know what you’re looking for, it might be better to use something like lemmy where you can advertise what you made with a post in an appropriate community.
Obviously both have their place, but POSSE is the magic sauce:
“POSSE is an abbreviation for Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, the practice of posting content on your own site first, then publishing copies or sharing links to third parties (like social media silos) with original post links to provide viewers a path to directly interacting with your content.” ―https://indieweb.org/POSSE
⚜︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
thanks, that makes sense. i gotta bookmark that comment.
For all y’all talking about the old private internet, it’s having a bit of a renaissance. Neocities is on of the big ones, but lots of people are straight up selfhosting them too. It’s not like you actually need anything more than a phone to run a static website for the tens of visitors you might get each month.
Here’s an example of one. Check the post dates. And the webrings. And the Glitter. And the, well, you get the point.
Because people who make websites want to get paid for them, payment is based on showing ads, ad companies want to maximize tracking via javascript, and if the only javascript is for ad bullshit it’s easy to block it so they force the content to load via javascript too.
It’s systemically fucked up in a way that goes beyond just the technology itself.
Tl;Dr: capitalism. Capitalism cannot allow nice things to exist.
I mean, the alternative is that all those people who want a way to offset server costs don’t find a way to do so, and therefore pack up and go home. And then we don’t get those websites.
Or, we solve the underlying problem
Youve never hosted before have you. What solution do you propose to handle the costs of hosting.
Communism. Preferably something anti-hierarchal, but I’d settle for something run the way we host “ai”.
The people that want to make money are not de facto legitimate. Some people want analog slavery too. Some people want fascism. Some people are serial killers. Some people are Google. I see no value in those people. They do not create content I find interesting. The things they fund are opposed to my principals and democracy. Those people buy and sell a part of me to exploit and manipulate me. Those people are criminals. Those people are bad neighbors and have no place in our communities and neighborhoods. We have a right to open public commons free from piracy, pillaging, and slavery. That is the fundamental flaw. The internet is public commons, not a slave market.
Are you denying the fact of capitalism existing on the internet? All you seem to say is idealistic non-statements that don’t engage with the answers you’re getting to the question you asked (or seemed to ask).
Guy who wants to offset the costs of his diy fursuit forums by hosting banner ads in the sidebar.
Uuuuuuuuuhhh…
You do know that there’s a less intrusive way of advertising ? Right ?
You do know that advertisers want the ads to be as intrusive as they can make them? Right?
We are talking about us not them
Neocities encourages static 90’s style webpages.
The why: because a lot of people have been conned into “needing” sites that can fry the client’s CPU, to the point where the con became the norm.
Another why: it’s easier to woo bosses/higher ups/clients when you show them pretty visuals. Doesn’t matter that the visuals are a fucking atrocity of spaghetti code, now they DEMAND pretty everything everywhere, fuck being practical or lightweight
Like fuck all the proprietary junk and versioning, and just have a bare bones HTML ASCII extranet designed to be simple and without any bugs to patch? Obviously a naive question.
There are many ways to get that. There is the Gemini protocol, of which is plaintext, and there is also I2P, of which is a dark net (gee!) that feels somewhat like the old internet (at least, that’s what some oldies in the forums say). A way to browse through there without installing a client would be via looking at here.
I’ve been saying the same thing. I think you should check out Gopher and neocities.
You can get a blacklist of all the sites you hate off gitthub and put it in ublock. They have a massive ai and Javascript list I think.
I agree. Early 2000s was peak internet before corporate enshit. But you dont need to live in their world. You need webrings and rss.
