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Re: Splitting The Web

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

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immibis <news@immibis.com> writes:

> On 12/22/23 18:47, Ben Collver wrote:
>> # Splitting the Web by Ploum on 2023-08-01
>> There's an increasing chasm dividing the modern web. On one side,
>> the
>> commercial, monopolies-riddled, media-adored web. A web which has
>> only one objective: making us click. It measures clicks, optimises
>> clicks, generates clicks. It gathers as much information as it could
>> about us and spams every second of our life with ads, beep,
>> notifications, vibrations, blinking LEDs, background music and
>> fluorescent titles.
>> A web which boils down to Idiocracy in a Blade Runner landscape, a
>> complete cyberpunk dystopia.
>> Then there's the tech-savvy web. People who install adblockers or
>> alternative browsers. People who try alternative networks such as
>> Mastodon or, God forbid, Gemini. People who poke fun at the modern
>> web by building true HTML and JavaScript-less pages.
>> Between those two extremes, the gap is widening. You have to choose
>> your camp. When browsing on the "normal web", it is increasingly
>> required to disable at least part of your antifeatures-blockers to
>> access content.
>> Most of the time, I don't bother anymore. The link I clicked doesn't
>> open or is wrangled? Yep, I'm probably blocking some important
>> third-party JavaScript. No, I don't care. I've too much to read on a
>> day anyway. More time for something else. I'm currently using
>> kagi.com as my main search engine on the web. And kagi.com comes with
>> a nice feature, a "non-commercial lens" (which is somewhat ironic
>> given the fact that Kagi is, itself, a commercial search engine). It
>> means it will try to deprioritize highly commercial contents. I can
>> also deprioritize manually some domains. Like facebook.com or
>> linkedin.com. If you post there, I'm less likely to read you. I've
>> not even talked about the few times I use marginalia.nu.
>> Something strange is happening: it's not only a part of the web
>> which
>> is disappearing for me. As I'm blocking completely google analytics,
>> every Facebook domain and any analytics I can, I'm also disappearing
>> for them. I don't see them and they don't see me!
>> Think about it! That whole "MBA, designers and marketers web" is now
>> optimised thanks to analytics describing people who don't block
>> analytics (and bots pretending to be those people). Each day, I feel
>> more disconnected from that part of the web.
>> When really needed, dealing with those websites is so nerve breaking
>> that I often resort to... a phone call or a simple email. I signed my
>> mobile phone contract by exchanging emails with a real person because
>> the signup was not working. I phone to book hotels when it is not
>> straightforward to do it in the web interface or if creating an
>> account is required. I hate talking on the phone but it saves me a
>> lot of time and stress. I also walk or cycle to stores instead of
>> ordering online. Which allows me to get advice and to exchange
>> defective items without dealing with the post office.
>> Despite breaking up with what seems to be "The Web", I've never
>> received so many emails commenting my blog posts. I rarely had as
>> many interesting online conversations as I have on Mastodon. I've
>> tens of really insightful contents to read every day in my RSS feeds,
>> on Gemini, on Hacker News, on Mastodon. And, incredibly, a lot of
>> them are on very minimalists and usable blogs. The funny thing is
>> that when non-tech users see my blog or those I'm reading, they
>> spontaneously tell me how beautiful and usable they are. It's a bit
>> like all those layers of JavaScript and flashy css have been used
>> against usability, against them. Against us. It's a bit like real
>> users never cared about "cool designs" and only wanted something
>> simple.
>> It feels like everyone is now choosing its side. You can't stay in
>> the middle anymore. You are either dedicating all your CPU cycles to
>> run JavaScript tracking you or walking away from the big monopolies.
>> You are either being paid to build huge advertising billboards on top
>> of yet another framework or you are handcrafting HTML.
>> Maybe the web is not dying. Maybe the web is only splitting itself
>> in
>> two.
>> You know that famous "dark web" that journalists crave to write
>> about? (at my request, one journalist once told me what "dark web"
>> meant to him and it was "websites not easily accessible through a
>> Google search".) Well, sometimes I feel like I'm part of that "dark
>> web". Not to buy drugs or hire hitmen. No! It's only to have a place
>> where I can have discussions without being spied and interrupted by
>> ads.
>> But, increasingly, I feel less and less like an outsider.
>> It's not me. It's people living for and by advertising who are the
>> outsiders. They are the one destroying everything they touch,
>> including the planet. They are the sick psychos and I don't want them
>> in my life anymore. Are we splitting from those
>> click-conversion-funnel-obsessed weirdos? Good riddance! Have fun
>> with them.
>> But if you want to jump ship, now is the time to get back to the
>> simple web. Welcome back aboard!
>> From: <https://ploum.net/2023-08-01-splitting-the-web.html>
>
> Cross-posting to specific communities it would interest. Original
> thread in comp.misc. (Is this against Usenet etiquette?)
Interesting. My take on the modern web is like sugar; it's fine in
moderation. This is not a black-and-white issue.

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Re: Splitting The Web immibis <news@immibis.com> - 2023-12-23 11:47 +0100
  Re: Splitting The Web cr0c0d1le <nospam@nospam.org> - 2023-12-23 08:18 -0500
    Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2023-12-23 14:33 +0100
      Re: Splitting The Web Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> - 2023-12-24 01:30 +0300
        Re: Splitting The Web Helmut Richter <hr.usenet@email.de> - 2023-12-24 11:38 +0100
          Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 17:18 +0100
            Re: Splitting The Web Helmut Richter <hr.usenet@email.de> - 2024-01-03 17:43 +0100
              Re: Splitting The Web Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2024-01-03 16:56 +0000
                Re: Splitting The Web immibis <news@immibis.com> - 2024-01-06 21:25 +0100
              Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 23:03 +0100
        Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 17:11 +0100
          Re: Splitting The Web cr0c0d1le <cr0c0d1le.ewlkg@8shield.net> - 2024-01-03 11:19 -0500
            Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 23:02 +0100
    Re: Splitting The Web not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2023-12-24 07:45 +1000
  Re: Splitting The Web IanJ <SPAMian_jones_01@yahoo.co.uk> - 2023-12-24 13:19 +0000
    Re: Splitting The Web oldernow <oldernow@dev.null> - 2023-12-26 20:34 +0000
    Re: Splitting The Web cr0c0d1le <nospam@nospam.org> - 2023-12-26 18:53 -0500
    Re: Splitting The Web immibis <news@immibis.com> - 2023-12-27 19:08 +0100
    Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 17:21 +0100
      Re: Splitting The Web Helmut Richter <hr.usenet@email.de> - 2024-01-03 17:51 +0100
        Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 23:05 +0100
      Re: Splitting The Web IanJ <SPAMian_jones_01@yahoo.co.uk> - 2024-01-03 17:38 +0000
        Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-03 23:07 +0100
      Re: Splitting The Web Rayner Lucas <usenet202101@magic-cookie.co.ukNOSPAMPLEASE> - 2024-01-04 22:51 +0000
        Re: Splitting The Web D <nospam@example.net> - 2024-01-05 12:55 +0100

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