Many yearn for the “good old days” of the web. We could have those good old days back — or something even better — and if anything, it would be easier now than it ever was.
My journey to the heart of the forgotten internet
Slowly but surely, huge swaths of the internet are vanishing. But the artefacts of the early web are still out there, and they have lessons for the future.
Changing the web is hard, and for good reasons. But it should not be impossible, or the web itself cannot grow and change with the needs of the people who use it.
It's time to rebuild the web
The web was never supposed to be a few walled gardens of concentrated content owned by a few major publishers; it was supposed to be a cacophony of different sites and voices.
The Missing Building Blocks of the Web
At a time when millions are losing trust in the the web’s biggest sites, it’s worth revisiting the idea that the web was supposed to be…
Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality
The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending
AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web
I remember, pretty clearly, my excitement over the early World Wide Web. I had been on the internet for a year or two at that point, mostly using IRC, Usenet, and Gopher (along with email, naturall…
What We Lost When We Quit Using Crappy Old Web Forums
Old web forums were poorly coded and rough around the edges, but maybe we gave up on them too quickly in the social media era.
Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet Era
The grand idealism of the free and open internet might be over for now, but in its place falls a more practical mindset. Just like Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs are entering their “Hard Tech” era, the people building web alternatives are also entering their Post-Naive Era. Here are the names to know.
The Fathers of the Internet Revolution Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web
Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, and other Internet pioneers issue a challenge on a day that just might go down in tech history
The year we wanted the internet to be smaller
Why tiny, weird online communities made a comeback in 2017
Filling the potholes of the web.
People with the power to fix our inaccessible web have failed to do it for long enough. Isn’t it time to imagine ways we can repair the web without waiting for them?
Society Desperately Needs An Alternative Web
In a world of rampant technology, and what will be the future of our planet, it is inflicting harms in the very fabric of society who depends on it. Is it too late to steer its path towards an internet intended to free information, preserve our privacy and be accountable to the needs of humanity?
The Sites We Lost
A memorial to the weird little corners of the internet that lived on The Useless Web.
