Chris Trottier
1/ Someone asked, "How can basic HTML pages be social media -- and create something resembling the public square?" So here's a thread ?
If you were not around to witness the early web, let me explain what it was like.
During the 90s, most websites just used HTML. CSS and JavaScript existed in the latter part of the decade, but they were entirely optional.
The appeal of the web wasn't "rich media". Again, that came later.
What made the web exciting is what also made it social: hyperlinking
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
They will try, but it will not work — especially now that the #fediverse (totally driven by protocols based on open standards) is out of the bag.
IMHO:
The key to all of this lies in loosely-coupling structured data representation with #identity #authenticity and #privacy (which can’t be delivered to an individual via 3rd parties).
Chris Trottier
9/ The biggest problem with the Internet nowadays is increasing centralization.
What do I mean by this?
That there's an alarming decrease in sites that people visit on the Internet.
There's a trend to do everything on one site -- or to even bypass the Internet entirely and do it on one app.
In fact, there's a VC-driven race right now to build an "everything app". That's the end goal.
Should we let that happen? No!
This is why we should continue to build websites -- and visit them!
Chris Trottier
8/ Now I'm not the biggest booster of the web. In fact, I've long since said that the Internet needs to decentralize away from it.
Nevertheless, the web is a tool -- an important tool -- and we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that basic HTML (with hyperlinking) can do a whole lot of things that can address inequality on the Internet.
If you're an activist and you worry about censorship from Meta and Facebook, building your own website and self-hosting it is an incredible tool.
Chris Trottier
7/ What people forget is that the destruction of Meta and Twitter *doesn't* mean the destruction of the public square.
No, the *web* itself is the public square.
Anyone can set up a simple, basic website.
In fact, it's easier than ever to do this, and it costs very little money.
All you need is hardware.
And guess what? Almost all hardware made within the last 20 years is capable of being a webserver.
A basic website actually is the most accessible of social media tools.
Chris Trottier
6/ Now why do I mention that the web was designed to be social?
Because it's not so apparent now.
Nowadays, a static webpage implies no interaction.
But this was not true of the early web. Rather, the interaction was through static webpages themselves.
People communicated with each other via hyperlinks.
Chris Trottier
5/ If you want to know what this older version of the web looked like, and how it was explicitly social, I recommend browsing through Neocities.
Sites like these were why people literally just surfed the web as a hobby -- because there was so much social creativity going on that it could entertain you for days, weeks, months -- even years.
Chris Trottier
4/ Now what made the web especially attractive to people was that the sky was the limit in terms of creativity.
Not only could you format text, you could change backgrounds, embed pictures and animations, create tables -- the sky was the limit.
This was the appeal of sites like GeoCities where people could just show off their full creative freedom.
To this day, I feel the early web was more creative and expressive than its current iteration.
Chris Trottier
3/ Let's now consider what makes hyperlinking explicitly social.
Virtually every website has a hyperlink. Most of the time, these hyperlinks reference other pages on the site.
But they can do something else: reference pages on OTHER sites.
This is important because visitors to your website don't need to be siloed to your website. They can now become aware of a much wider world of creativity.
Hence why the web was called the World Wide Web.
Chris Trottier
2/ The web has become so popular, people forget that an Internet exists apart from the web.
Prior to the web, people were able to host basic .txt files fine on various BBS boards.
What made the web so completely dominant is that none of those other services could hyperlink.
This is so important that the protocol itself is: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
What is hypertext? Text that allows for referencing. Mostly these are hyperlinks.
So why reference? Because referencing is social.
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