Why the Post-1997 Internet Blows Ass

[prime]

But held up to today's monotonous and toxic digital media landscape? The old blogosphere felt like a golden age.

Yet for the longest time, I thought that era was dead and gone. That personal blogs had gone the way of the dodo or the fansite. But I was wrong.

Hiding beneath the drivel that is Google's search results, and all the trackers, cookies, ads and curated feeds that come with them, personal blogs and sites of all shapes and sizes are still there. They're thriving even in a kind of interconnected web beneath the web.

https://mikegrindle.com/posts/personal-blogging

Over-written but makes some good points: Google standardized the web into three-channel television.

Templatized website builders have proliferated on the web, which is mostly a really good thing! Everyone who wants their own website should be able to make one, even if it does look, well, squarespace-y. Any tech company worth their weight these days has their own design system, a nice little component library built on top of some master framework, with small tweaks for the specific business use case.

Also, it's BORING. It's BORING AS HELL. Guh, bring back interesting websites, bring back the creativity that the web offers. Bring back frontend devs who aren't afraid to get down with the mouse event handlers!!

https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/02/unbearable-sameness/

Ackbar, meet Allahu.