Comment by AuthAuth
14 hours ago
As a younger person I always see these discussions and I want an alternative to the modern web. But reading this I cant help but think "why are people so focused on building a web with none of the useful features". What use is any of this without a realtime component.
The largest disconnect between then and now, is the degree to which the internet was many things (telnet, ftp, usenet, finger, gopher, http, irc, mail, etc...), and not just webpages. Each with their own specific flavors. The article is trying to recapture that to a small degree.
Over time, almost everything has been compressed into this HTTP/HTML/JScript agglomeration. When the original thought was that there would be dozens of protocols for various uses, and a lot more client applications than the browser.
The best analogy I can think of is, imagine that plays(theaters), movies(bigscreens), novels(books), operas(concert halls), art(galleries), museums, etc... All disappeared in favor of delivering that content through games on your Xbox. All of that experience compressed into one method. Then the next generation says:
"Why would anyone miss physical art galleries? I can see art much faster on the 'Louvre 2026-season pass' on my Xbox? No travel, no walking, no lines."
...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.)
That would be irc.
Also, the Unix “talk” command is a nice 1-to-1 chat protocol along the lines of finger, ie
$ talk snoopy@dog.house