> Otherwise I don't see it as more than a toy.
I was a kid so I could well be wrong, but my memory of the early net was that most 'regular' people kind of saw it as a toy. It wasn't until the start of the .com boom that it really became something different. Being seen as a toy might actually be good in this case.
I like the idea of using a different tech stack, though it would have to be very simple to keep up with (and surpass) current levels of innovation. Hence, the terminal?
> my memory of the early net was that most 'regular' people kind of saw it as a toy I think you're a few years ahead of me, then. I don't remember much of that time. But the difference might be (and I hope not) that the general web was a much more unique tool back then, and people knew about it from sheer novelty. I think the chicken/egg problem of users is harder to solve in this case. Not saying it can't be done, just saying it has to be solved intentionally and with effort.
> people knew about it from sheer novelty
This is a really good point. The essence of the question probably boils down to how many people like us there are out there, who want an alternative badly enough to work on it (and in it) while it's small and sparse. The only real feature I can think of that might seriously set it apart from today's net for everyone else is privacy protection, which could be built in from the ground up.
> the other net would be more interesting to just browse around and share stuff on.
What if that was the focus of the system? Make it super easy to publish and find Information. Webpages are honestly kind of hard to work with, and the tendency is to make them way too flashy. Remake the incentives of the system based on what was learned from the first version, and something really cool, and super useful, might be the result. I imagine that a terminal-interface focus might be instrumental.