[JohnFen]

> Can we bring it back? Not to destroy the ad-driven aggregators (a lot of people seem to like them), but to build something for the rest of us.

I don't think that's really possible, if what you mean is an open web like it used to be. It's too far gone, too many people don't remember or never experienced what it was in its heyday, and I doubt that the attitude that everything must be monetized is going away anytime soon.

Now, a "good web" protected behind login walls may be possible, but that's no longer the open web.

[mcwhittemore]

I'm not really convinced its gone. Its small. It was small 20+ years ago too though. I think the problem now is its hard to find the web where before that was all that was.

[JohnFen]

Oh, it's not gone, but as you say it's small and getting smaller. About half of my regular haunts (the ones that still exist, anyway) have withdrawn from the public web in the last couple of years and gone behind login walls in order to protect against crawlers. That's why I suspect this is the direction things are going to go.

[mcwhittemore]

Care to share the examples?