Ask HN: Is the web even browsable anymore? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is the web even browsable anymore?

22 pointssamh74813 comments

A few others commented on a recent thread [0] mentioning that they no longer browse the the internet, and that the internet "forgot how to let itself become browsed".

This really got me thinking about this whole phenomenon. Of proliferation of "walled-gardens", of search engines like Chrome becoming less effective due to SEO optimization and thus users having to look elsewhere, whether that's Reddit, Quora, HN, etc.

Obviously, we all still occasionally browse the web, but it really doesn't compare to back in the days, at least for me.

What's happened to the web??? How much is because of shifts in technology, and how much is because of a cultural shift, of how we use the web, of the type of information we seek (eg preferring people-mediated information like Reddit/Quora/HN, rather than static information sources like a website dedicated to a topic)?

Maybe this isn't necessary bad thing? Or is it? If we could dream up a different search environment and different technologies surrounding the internet and the WWW, what would it be?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31111394#31114748

I've retreated into my small usable, browsable, friendly, consensual ghetto corner of the Web, and turn back quickly whenever I accidentally follow a link out of it.

Inside:

My own websites, which I make for myself and friends.

HN

Nitter, Teddit

A little bit of mbasic and insta

Everything else generally gets the close-tab (Just "w" in my browser) and nothing of value is lost.

With human-human relationships, it's common wisdom to avoid assholes, inconsiderate people, profiteers, the inconsiderate, parasites, manipulators, those who take advantage of us, liars, those who violate our privacy or don't respect consent, and so on...

I think it makes a lot of sense to apply the same rules in my relationships with other types of entities as well.

I'm liberal with second chances, but the backoff is exponential ))

Separated websites make it very hard to bring along your own networks of people. If I share stuff on Twitter or Instagram when I share it I "bring along" everybody who is following me, and if they share it they bring along their people and so on.

Some sort of "distributed comment section" that you bring along when you visit a site could bridge this gap, but I haven't seen anything event remotely ready.

I mean technically you can have a chat with your friends and share a link. But that doesn't really have this "live", "organic" feel of a public square.

I absolutely love the idea of the public square. It's been something I've been dreaming of for a while now, to have a place on the web like that. But having the entire web as one public square, that blows my mind.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the web is really just a container. A container of infinite possibilities.

In the beginning (Web 1.0), it was one of static websites. Web 2.0 made it interactive, allowing for user input such as comments etc., which laid the foundation for the more recent explosion of walled-gardens and web-apps.

While it's easy to celebrate the old and criticize the new, in the end nothing is intrinsically "good" or "bad". With the web being a container of possibilities, it means we're free to dream, design, and defend whatever it is that we want the web to be.

That's my philosophical take anyway.

Wat.

Are you a teenager?

Web 1.0 had user interaction in the form of forms, which made http get/post requests.

HAhaha I'm 30, but damn that shows my lack of knowledge in tech! Oops!

It's just my broad perception of 1.0 vs 2.0 from the things I've read.

Embarrassing.

No, I think you were mostly correct. Submitting a form on a Web 1.0 site—typically search or guest books—was hardly an experience you’d call “interactive”, especially today. Every form submission required a refresh, and sites were usually very static. Web 2.0—and honestly, I’ve always thought these classifications were rather hazy—was where you started seeing the ability to submit/request data without requiring a page refresh. I remember Flickr as being a good example of that, with their dropdown menus, drag-and-drop UI, and smooth form submission.

So while it’s technically true that Web 1.0 was in some limited sense interactive, I agree with your comment that 2.0 was where interactivity as we think of it really began, especially regarding forms. Also worth noting that if you look at how others define Web 2.0, a common theme is the focus on user-submitted content, which is consistent with your impression of what 2.0 was.

(And to be clear, I’m hardly a teenager; I’m 40, remember 1.0 and 2.0 very well, and have spent more than half my life building both kinds of sites professionally.)

The big shift for me is that the web got monetized, and now everything is either trying to get you to buy, trying to harvest your data, or both.

It didn't used to be that way. Once upon a time, the idea that you'd expose your credit card or other personal details on the internet was inconceivable. With this change came the end of the fun Internet.

How about a micropayment solution? Any person or machine can browse any content - they just need to pay. It can happen transparently in the background too.

Like replacing captcha with a fee.

While people may think.. this is just an added expense.. remember you can also make money too!

Sure it is, you just need a good ad blocker. Oh, and a way to bypass all the paywalls that everyone thinks you can afford, all of a sudden.

It's pretty tragic that 'Reader Mode' browsers/extensions are a thing.

I'm old enough to remember when that's the only mode there was!

I think the thing is we used to search for content, e.g. go to programming forum, specific language sub-forum, specific topic sub-sub forum, etc.

now we have "feeds", infinite scrolling of content we never asked for, paywalls and cookie popups.

I feel like the solution would be complete backend/frontend separation. imagine reddit as being only a comments database, your user is an api key and the website is just one of many frontends displaying queries on that database. right now we have only one frontend pushing whatever "the algorithm" thinks is optimized. but maybe then we will have freedom.

If you have enough time it is 10% browsable. The rest is paywalls, dark patterns, ads and propaganda.

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