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I totally disagree. It is not the web or www that is hostile but many websites and services out there. I think no one will go back to the old web, although I agree it was an epic experience back then. For me it is totally logical that many people try to find a way to earn money on the internet, and in this economy there is in principle nothing wrong with that IMHO. No one forces you to use Facebook, Google or any of the great services available. But people seem to forget that in life almost everything comes with a price. For Facebook and Google you pay with your (more or less private) data. So? If you think it's not a fair deal, simply don't use it! But please don't blame the entire web for that. The web as it is now has soooo much more to offer than the old web that it is hard to even imagine! A few things I use that were impossible in the 90's, from the top of my head: listen music on youtube, learn and use any programming language for free, git, open source, read the latest news in online
newspapers from remote countries, buy tickets online, airbnb, online banking, broadcast on twitter, social networks, slack,
OS updates, World of Warcraft/games, crypto currencies, etc.. etc...
I'm happy to pay with some of my privacy to any of the services above, it's up to me to decide whether the balance is OK. |
> listen music on youtube
True by definition, but listening to and distributing music via computer networks has been going on since the 80s.
> learn and use any programming language for free
There were plenty of resources on that on the web in the 90s and on bulletin board systems in the 80s.
> git
A complete side note since it has nothing to do with the web.
> open source
Many significant open/free software projects started in the 90s. NetBSD/FreeBSD since 93. GNU has been around since 83.
> read the latest news in online newspapers from remote countries
News websites surprisingly existed in the 90s as well. It is speculative to say that their increasing plurality owes anything to the current centralization trend.
> broadcast on twitter
Broadcast on your own personal website. Broadcast in a newsgroup. Broadcast by email. Broadcast on IRC.
> social networks
Bulletin boards. Email. Newsgroups.
> slack
IRC
> OS updates
Like, say, Slackware in the mid 90s?
> World of Warcraft/games
On-line, networked games existed before the web and don't really need to rely on it.
> crypto currencies
Again, not really dependent on the web.