thinking about websites
over the past few years i've seen a lot of people say stuff like "i miss websites!" and it kind of bugs me. i understand the feeling at face value -- i am also a big fan of personal websites, which is why i made my own (https://lycopersica.xyz) (haven't updated it in like 3 years because i just sort of ran out of ideas for it but i'd like to come back to it eventually). most of the people who say stuff like this do not make their own websites, nor do they have any interest in visiting the websites of people who still make them. it bugs me! if you miss websites so much, nothing is stopping you from making one. you don't even need to learn html anymore, you can just tell chatgpt what you want and it'll give you everything you need.
the fact is, people don't want personal websites. they don't want forums. they don't want blogs. if they wanted these spaces to survive, they would have kept using them instead of migrating to the gigantic corporate-owned platforms they're all siloed inside now. or, they would move off of the gigantic platforms into alternative spaces, which do exist, or can be created, but they're just not as much fun without someone being paid to do the content moderation, or make the website more usable, or an algorithm that spits predigested content most likely to drive engagement out in front of you like a mama bird into your wide open beak. i think most people don't know how to exist on the internet without these things anymore. like unfortunately the only answer is that you have to start making and using the things and spaces you'd like to see on the internet -- the corporate internet has taken a lot of stuff away from us on the platforms they let us use, and they are not going to suddenly decide that user freedom is a priority.
another thing people bring up a lot in these contexts is "i miss stumbleupon!" which was an old browser extension toolbar (remember those?) that allowed you to click a button and be served a new website, which you could rate and review. i'm well known as a stumbleupon hater even though i met several people on there with whom i had decades-long friendships when i was a teenager, but i think what people miss about it is that they no longer feel like they have an understanding of avenues of discoverability on the internet without algos. like they wish there was something other than a social media algorithm that could serve them the content they like, but there isn't, because a social media algorithm or a google search algorithm don't want to bring you content you're going to like, they want to bring you content you're going to engage with in one way or another and preferably in a way that costs you money. ironically this is also why stumbleupon sucked ass -- people almost instantly started using it as an avenue for SEO, so half the websites on there were individual out of context pages of blogs or webcomics (remember those?) or just like, boomer meme jpegs, and the other half were blogs about SEO. basically i guess my thesis here is that i think advertising online should be illegal.