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by derefr 28 days ago
...because a lot of us remember a web that was very useful already, without needing a realtime component? We did the realtime stuff over other protocols; the web was literally just a web of static hypertext documents.

In fact, even search engines were originally optional; various people and organizations used to simply maintain huge static directory service websites, simply listing out "everything else on the web" (or more often, just the parts the author thinks are cool.)

1 comments

Yes but all of that sounds horrible to me. Nobody really wants web of static documents and to have everything split out into its own protocol.
Says who? I, for one, don't really like the idea of "everything is http(s)".

After all, dissatisfaction with the status quo is the reasons this space (gopher, gemini, etc.) even exists. If, like you say, nobody wanted this we wouldn't be here discussing it.

The majority of people have shown a preference for what experiences they expect from the web. If we are to design a new web it should be to meet and improve apon those experiences. If we just redesign he 1999 web then very few people will adopt it. We can look at Gopher and Gemini and see that its got some users but 99.9% of people will never find it somewhere that they want to vist and to contribute to.