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.

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    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.

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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    12 hours ago

    Because people don’t want it compared to the current Internet.

    There is nothing stopping people from creating the Internet of old.

  • Who am I, love?@lemmy.zip
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    18 hours ago

    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.

  • sol6_vi@lemmy.makearmy.io
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    23 hours ago

    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.

      • sol6_vi@lemmy.makearmy.io
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        21 hours ago

        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.

  • quant@leminal.space
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    21 hours ago

    Market demand. A “boring” static website isn’t going to attract VC funding and management approval.

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    22 hours ago

    I have one browser profile with js disabled and have been slowly migrating to it. It’s soooo fast. Barring any issues with the website, each click-and-render is waaay faster than any SPA, back button is instantaneous.

  • harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    21 hours ago

    Developers are dumb and/or burned out by leadership and can’t be arsed to use the right tool for the right job. New blog? React.j. Ecommerce? React.js. Wiki? React.js. A fucking landing page reading “Coming Soon!”? Believe it or not, React.js. And unless provided by whatever metaframework they’re using this week, forget about appropriately-sized images and videos. You will render a 2000x3000 pixel PNG of the letter A on your 720p smartphone, and you will like it.

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    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

    • Spaz@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Your framework? The hipster café that"s “temporarily closed” every time you need it.

    • pemptago@lemmy.ml
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      17 hours ago

      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">
      
    • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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      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).

  • arsCynic@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      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.

      • arsCynic@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        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.

  • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    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.

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    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.

    • ctrowat@lemmy.ca
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      For a more modern take on gopher consider also checking out gemini if you haven’t already. It is somewhat different yet familiar.

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        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.

        • 1984@lemmy.today
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          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”. :)

  • DaGeek247@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    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.