[laumars]

I think the GP is talking about long before IE6 was a thing. Even back in the IE4 days there were web based games, HTML chat rooms, etc. I remember writing vast interactive 3D landscapes in VRML which were embedded into home page even as early as the late 90s (~4 years before IE6 was released).

But aside VRML and other browser plugins the web was ostensibly just a network of hyperlinked documents. You'd make an action and get a fresh page. Make another action and get another fresh page. Sure it was primitive by today's standards but it wasn't possibly to do half the "evil" things we complain about today (user tracking, browser mining, etc) and there were still big social hubs like the Yahoo! portal too. What's more, because the barrier for entry as well as people's own expectations were that much lower it meant you saw a hell of a lot more individuality in the content posted. People would literally put a website up about their favourite designs of bridges, the shapes of snail shells, cartoon trivia no normal person should care about, or some local landmark. There were sites dedicated to the most mundane of things yet they were strangely fascinating topics because you get drawn into the topic through the obsession and wonder that drove the sites author to dedicate his on little piece of the web to it.

These days the signal to noise ratio is so far tilted the other way with people obsessing too much about contributing what they think people want read or boasting about stuff they feel is boast-worthy that it almost completely drains out the purist content from people who just post stuff that genuinely interests themselves. This is compounded by the fact that the web has been gamified by some big names to encourage the kind of boastful content I described earlier because that feedback loop of posting content then waiting for "likes" and/or means more screen time which, in turn, means more eyeballs on adverts. The fact that everything is so bite-sized hardly helps either; Facebook statuses, Twitter "tweets", Instagram posts - they're all short, direct, "shots" of information. Fewer people engage in the longer process of having a page dedicated to a subject. Which means we lose a lot of detail, creativity and personality.

The only good thing about the modern web is that while the barrier for entry writing a website has gone up, inversely the barrier for entry publishing content has gone down dramatically.

[shwetank]

>What's more, because the barrier for entry as well as people's own expectations were that much lower it meant you saw a hell of a lot more individuality in the content posted. People would literally put a website up about their favourite designs of bridges, the shapes of snail shells, cartoon trivia no normal person should care about, or some local landmark

You can still find those types of sites if you want.

>These days the signal to noise ratio is so far tilted the other way with people obsessing too much about contributing what they think people want read or boasting about stuff they feel is boast-worthy that it almost completely drains out the purist content from people who just post stuff that genuinely interests themselves.

With more people joining the web, that will be a side effect of it. On the flip side, there has been so much massive positive change on the web too. Online transactions, many government services becoming online (many times reducing corruption), email and IM connecting people around the world in a way never before, and many many more things. Just focussing on the negatives by commenting a few types of sites like fb, insta, twitter etc is fainting a very one-dimensional picture.

>The only good thing about the modern web is that while the barrier for entry writing a website has gone up, inversely the barrier for entry publishing content has gone down dramatically

I actually think that is a bad thing, not good. What made the web the web was the low barrier to entry. Also, if you think that is the only good thing about the modern web, then I really don't think you truly realize the scale in which most people take the web for granted nowadays in their everyday lives, which affects them in a positive way.

[laumars]

> You can still find those types of sites if you want.

You can. And I made that point myself. The issue is the signal to noise ratio and the way search engines rank sites. Finding those gems I described above have become harder than it used to (in my personal opinion)

> less corruption

I very much disagree that there’s less corruption now the web has taken off. Or at least if there is, I disagree it’s directly related to stuff getting published on the web.

> email and IM connecting people around the world like never before

Email and IM have existed long before the web (decades before in emails case), nevermind being available around the period of the early web that we were talking about.

> just focusing on negatives like fab, Twitter, etc creates a very one dimensional picture

I totally agree.

The reason it was written that as was because I wanted to offer a counterbalance to the previous post rather than a balanced and impartial commentary. However you’re right that the reality is somewhere between the two arguments.

> I actually thing that’s a bad thing

I think you’ve completely misunderstood my point because you’re arguing the same point I made with using language that suggests I was opposed to those points you’re making.

Also you seem to be confusing “web” with “internet” in some of your previous remarks and also suggesting I’m totally against the web in its entirety; neither of those points are true (in fact I’m very much pro-web)