The Internet Free Zone (1997)
arachnoid.com
arachnoid.com
The optimist in me says that it will happen as almost everything popular becomes enshittified and unusable, so the "old" alternatives come back because they are just that much better, so a new cycle of innovation starts again. The pessimist in me says that it won't happen and in 5 years, we'll be using our computers as slightly larger phones and everything replaced with hyper-monetised, LLM-generated trash.
Back to basics is already available, in a sense, if you want it.
IMO, it's necessarily an underground scene because mass culture wants big tech. It takes a certain awareness and commitment to principles to reject the convenience afforded by seemingly free everything that happens to be paid for by selling user data and all the other negatives that come with that (like engagement at any cost).
True, there's a lot of free stuff in the tildeverse as well, but everything there exists because someone thinks it's cool and is willing to take on the financial hit to have it exist without asking for compensation.
Those programs were new then.
Then 10 project managers were added, and each wanted something new (or in case of google, a new program altogether), new features, new design, new something, and instead of a good (and later maintained) program, we have software with pretty much the same features as in 1997, but suddenly uses 3 gigs of ram.
Bad software is less about PM bloat, and more about the SaaS model that incentivizes companies to continually add features and "make work", whether or not their customers have asked for it.
I think with a more selective job market, people can make tech choices based more on tech and less on labor
Web apps were running fine with a bit of Jquery.
Today's experiences are much more immersive for sure, and the technologies underpinning them are getting much more effective and efficient to write and maintain. Svelte is one that comes to mind.
Edit: fixed typo
I am aware of a few underground scenes that are doing this. It seems like it's possible for one of them to break out into public consciousness and gain traction eventually.
A webring might be a good for the "old internet" vibe, but a search engine limited to sites that don't sell anything (including visitors) would be even better.
I'm not sure this page would technically quality for the level 1 membership considering it has the "These Pages Created and Maintained using Arachnophilia" ad for Arachnophilia but maybe since it's on the same domain it doesn't count.
Like marginalia[0]?
As if the other interests are better. Eg Russian trolling ain't a commercial interest, it's a geopolitical one. Or [politics](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...) in general.
The web of 1997 was so much more innocent, when we mostly had to worry about those 'evil' commercial interests.
Selling actual stuff doesn’t seem bad, especially when compared to user tracking.
But a site showing adverts for those hats would be okay? It seems backwards.
For example, even in the late '90s you could still access the research reports on the DEA website. One of the more memorable ones was about the "Bay Area Organization" that their chemists determined was the source of virtually all LSD-25 sold in the North American market. Furthermore, the distribution network was found to travel with Grateful Dead shows. Another interesting observation in the report was that this organization was impossible to infiltrate, because unlike the narcotics traffickers who were money motivated, the Bay Area Organization appeared to be made up of true believers who wanted to share psychedelics for spiritual or mystical reasons rather than commercial gain. Needless to say this information isn't in any way surprising to anyone who was there, but that level of transparency from a three letter agency on the Internet is utterly unthinkable today.
I wouldn't be surprised if some former members of the "Bay Area Organization" read this site. If any of you are, I hope that you are writing memoirs and will please publish them at a time you find prudent.
Apparently there's a whole subset of Japanese only websites that still use web 1.0 design considerations.
I've been tempted to learn Japanese just so I can experience the joy of being frozen in the 90s.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
When it comes to Japan, you can even double up on the '90s goodness by maintaining a POTS line with a fax machine.
Funny enough, I end up using a fax 0-1 times a year. Enough that I can just do it at work.
Document scanning however is a different story. I do that enough times a year that I keep one on hand next to my laser printer (<3).