[irrational]

I wish they had come up with a different name than WWW or World Wide Web. Those are too long to say. Internet is inaccurate. Web and Net haven’t really caught on, in my experience. I’m not sure what a better name would be, but ideally three syllables or less that people would actually use consistently. Too late now.

[cxr]

Fix the root of the problem, not the symptom. The name of the letter W is in itself too long and doesn't make sense anymore, anyway. The name of the letter, therefore, should be changed so when it's pronounced, it sounds similar to the names of many other letters (B, C, D, E, G, etc., and Z except in Commonwealth countries). Thus "www" when spoken would be pronounced "wee wee wee".

[cout]

"Who's goin' wee wee wee?" https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z7DTIJlcP6s

[mostlysimilar]

I hear "web" often enough when specifically referring to WWW. Nowadays most people interact with each other via apps, so I think "internet" is accurate enough.

[Sharlin]

Hmm, in my experience insofar as anyone really refers to the web these days (mostly tech people), it's the web. Browsing the web, web browser, web server, web app, websockets, WebGL, and so on. Normal people just use "the internet", and have always used, not really aware or caring about what the difference is. Approximately nobody has called the web "world wide web" or "www" in the past 15 to 20 years, and nobody has even said "www" after essentially all URLs went www-less (and good riddance!)

As a sibling commenter said, these days most people don't even really refer to the internet often, because it just is, ubiquitous, ever-present, and accessed via apps that abstract it out even more. Being connected is the default state of matters, and does not require a specific term. Just like you don't often need to refer to or think about the air surrounding you.

[jks]

Back when a Finnish radio channel got a website, they had an infuriating ad where they played Surfin' USA by the Beach Boys and invited everyone to come surf on their site, and read out their URL: aitch tee tee pee colon slash slash double-u double-u double-u... I suppose browsers started filling in the URL scheme pretty early, because I remember somebody arguing that you shouldn't leave it out, it could well be ftp or gopher or who knows what they invent next.

[Sharlin]

Slashdot was reputedly named slashdot to make spelling out the URL humorously awkward: h t t p colon slash slash slash dot dot com.

[saulpw]

How about saying "dub dub dub" like everyone does in practice?

[RandallBrown]

I've always loved that World Wide Web is faster to say than WWW. I never say it, but it's interesting!

[NoZebra120vClip]

We entertained "dub-three" in those days, but it didn't catch on. The nickname, I mean.

I worked as a consultant connecting businesses to the Internet, and boss asked me if I thought this WWW thing was here to stay, or a fad. I replied, "meh, it's a fad" because I had been underwhelmed by its implementation, compared to some mind-blowing infrastructure systems, GUIs and wonders like the MBONE (talk about fads).

I believe that the tipping point for WWW is when it was realized as a platform for delivering applications (SaaS). Once that angle became apparent, all resources were expended on making that a reality.

[LMMojo]

Yes, 3 syllables versus 9 syllables. Funny, isn't it?

[majikandy]

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