[nickweb]

I think that as the author notes, we have gone. And I think it’s because we grew up. We don’t have the spare time like we used to, which, inevitably means we don’t access same sites, depriving them of visitors and relevant revenue.

We’ve gone.

[dt3ft]

We’ve gone, but replacement never came. They got stuck on twitter, discord, tiktok, twitch, snapchat.

Websites are difficult to build for the average Joe. Having a personal website doesn’t seem to be cool anymore. The number of followers on platform xyz seems to be the thing today. Lets hope the trend dies out and personal websites become cool again.

[lurker616]

It's like saying, I hope the new pop music trends that all the kids are listening to dies out, and 80s rock becomes cool again. It just isn't gonna happen.

[dt3ft]

I think you’re right. It is likely never going to happen.

[krapp]

Except 80s rock is cool again.

A lot of people here are still thinking with a pre-internet mindset, where because pop culture was mediated by the distribution of physical media or broadcasts at specific times, awareness of certain genres of music and pop-cultural touchstones was strictly gatekept by time, and trends were distinctly linear and generational.

But now all of that is discoverable at the same time. "the kids these days" aren't limited to what's trendy now, and it isn't more difficult to find 80's music than it is the latest tik-tok. And faux-nostalgia (neostalgia?) seems to be a constant pop human culture (indeed, much of it is manufactured by the corporations that control pop culture.) There are whole genres of new music like vaporwave and aesthetic movements that incorporate (at least a vague idea of) the 80s. People watch old shows from the 80s and 90s on Youtube. They look back on a time they never participated in as if it were a golden age of low-tech simplicity.

Of course, the general rule is things become cool again after 20 years to now I guess that would be... the millennium?

As far as personal websites go, the biggest reason the aren't likely to make a comeback is simply that hand-coding HTML and running a webserver has no utility for most people. Even considering all of the negatives of social media and centralization (which, let's be honest, is the fault of many of the people now complaining that the web is no longer cool) the model of software as a service allows people to publish to the web far more easily.

And who knows? "the kids these days" are as aware of the dangers of social media as anyone, that's why they won't be caught dead on Facebook or Twitter, they're all on Discord now or wherever. Maybe personal websites will catch on too just because of retro nostalgia as well.

[Baldbvrhunter]

it is the centralisation of visitor count widgets, guestbooks and web-rings on geocities

[mym1990]

I just don't think the idea that we don't have spare time is true. People prove that they have time to spend ample amounts of time on the big social apps. The truth is that it is much easier to check out and scroll mindlessly for an hour or two, versus finding meaningful creations on the web.