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The internet has gotten complicated. Websites take gigabytes of data, complicated pipelines, frameworks and teams of enigineers. I should know, I've been one of those engineers. I've also been a designer, having to consider to complexity of the beats we build these days. But it wasn't always this way, and I'm not convinced it *better* this way.
I remember a class in kindergarten sitting in a circle in the floor of the school library, surrounded by eMacs. Our teacher was telling us about the "world wide web", the things we could learn and the dangers we could face. "On the internet, nobody knows your a dog" she said, you shouldn't trust people are who they say they are. But at the same time, you could be whoever you wanted.
Back then, the internet was mysterious. It was a place you went to discover, to communicate and to create. I spent a lot of my childhood hanging out in forums, chatting with the regulars and developing real friendships. All of my friends had basic HTML knowledge, be it through creating a Geocities or customizing their MySpace.
When I learned to program, I could create complex websites with PHP, HTML and FTP. cPanel was my best friend, along with PHPmyAdmin. Things were simpler, and that made it more accessible for a 12 year learning to create.
Fast forward to my first job out of college. My manager has tasked me with learning a new web framework called React to possibly transition our Drupal website to. The day before I had setup my dev environment, installing packages, reading tutorials. I go to start the React dev server, and immediately get errors, a package I had installed yesterday was now deprecated.
Now I'm not naive, I realize that the needs of our modern world are more advanced then when I was 12. But we've made the web so complicated. A web engineer needs to understand whatever is the hottest JavaScript framework of the week ontop of databases, AWS/Azure/Firebase, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, etc. The websites we product are filled with animations, tracking, ads, multimedia, and then (if your lucky) content.
Designing includes rounds of wireframing, usability testing, tree sorts, surveys, client interviews and more. Each site looks different, but also the same. We over engineer commonly used patterns in an attempt to be unique and on-brand. We focus on business objectives first, customer experience second.
This is best demonstrated with the recent controversy around Reddit. In the early days, Reddit was simple. The UI was predictable, easy to use and "ugly". The site was content driven and encouraged discussion, a sense of community.
Since then, Reddit went through a widely hated redesign. One could say the new Reddit looked more modern with rounded corners and shadows, but the ease of use previously afforded by it's simplicty was gone. The mobile website was loaded with reminders to use the app, and certain features that previously worked on mobile were even disabled.
Then came the API changes. The moment when Reddit laid out that they were business focused, not user focused. Put simply, Reddit killed third-party clients to ensure users could be tracked by their official Reddit application.
Although Reddit has made the news, this is not something new, it's just become something we are desensitized to. At this point, you barely notice the number of popups you close, or ads you see when you check your email, or read a news article. It's normal, it's the new internet. It's a place of engagement metrics, sales and additiction. Conversations have been replaced with debates. Information replaced with content that makes you angry. And the creativity? Well that's completely gone.
But here's the thing, the internet we know is not the only internet out there. But it's the only one you'll find on Google. Obviously you know this, your here on Gemini reading this article. There are communities scattered across various protocols, not just HTTP. There's articles on Gopher, forums on Gemini, conversations in IRC, files on Usenet. Even in the world of HTTP, there are places like Tildes where real conversations can still happen.
These places aren't for profit, so you won't hear about them unless someone shows you. They don't seek to harvest your data and train LLMs, so they don't have seed money to spend on advertising. Instead, they focus on the user experience. Presenting content, promoting discussion, and yes, encourgaging creativity.
Why did I write this? To ramble about what we lost and what those darn kids have created? Well partially. But also to encourage you to share the "other internet". The one that matters. Most people won't be interested, but those that are, those that grew up with the internet of old, will find a home again. Like me.
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