# Quality of the Web



## Phishfry (Aug 1, 2018)

After setting up my first website over the last few days, I have a question.

If for 5 bucks a month I can host my own website.
With a 1Terrabtye/month rate I could have lots of visitors and some descent content.

Why is it everyone wants to 'monopolize' on thier websites?
Do they feel thier information is that valuable, that they should be paid for it.

I did web 1.0 in the late '90's. When tools like MacroMedia Dreamweaver and others showed up I really lost interest.
They were taking the html out of it. My Adobe PageMill did GUI but in a way nicer way that showed the code.
But Pagemill didn't have shockwaves or fireworks so Adobe bought them! That was it for me.
I bought a 300 dollar ColdFusion Toolkit and thought that was total garbage. That was my last website building experience.

Fast forward to 2018 back to the basics. HTML and CSS. What can't you do with it.
I don't see the need for javascript either. KISS.

Why is the web so rotten.
With $5/month websites you would think there would be quality content out the yingyang.
I find the web underwealming and mostly stale.


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## drhowarddrfine (Aug 1, 2018)

Everyone is trying to make a buck off it just like radio did when it first became possible for anyone to put up their own transmitter. Most of those sites have no real content but hope to make money by offering ads. Back when radio came out, every neighborhood had their own station and did the same thing while stomping on each other's signal. Thus regulation became necessary and that got rid of the mom-and-pop radio stations and the riff-raff.

For the same reason, I see the web becoming regulated and/or dominated by web "networks" and we see this already. People automatically go to Google, Facebook, Amazon and so on while their lightly used sites are last on the list. Amazon is just a mall of small shops so many have no need for their own web site anymore. Eventually most "little people" will just give up.

Somewhat related from just yesterday: The BS Web


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## ShelLuser (Aug 1, 2018)

In short: people like to earn money, that's really the bottom line here.

What you see happening to the Web is something you can see happening pretty much everywhere. Take youtube videos, you'd think (at first glimpse) that people set those up to have some fun. Fact of the matter is that many people use it to fill their wallets. Each to their own, but usually it's not exactly the kind of contents I'd be interested in.

Somewhat offtopic, but it has plenty of parallels and is also a passion of mine: Minecraft. It's very easy to set up a Minecraft server to play with your friends, at least as long as you use the Java edition (read: "the version meant to be played on PC's"). Yet _many_ server operators still try hard to monetize on it (which makes sense) but some of the advertisements being used.. ugh.. some make it sound as if hosting such a server would cost you a small fortune, which is utter bollocks.

You can really see this mess everywhere. Which is why I'm happy that we have organizations such as the FreeBSD foundation. Take this forum...  They don't whine about donations and such (even though that's always highly appreciated, and something I also do myself from time to time) and they don't shove it in our faces either.

But back to the Web...  I can fully agree. Though I have to admit that I've also taken "web" a step up. Ever since I became more familiar with C#.NET which is a programming language aimed at 'programming' web contents I got pretty much hooked. What I enjoy so much about it is that this is all server-sided so the clients don't have to deal (too much) with javacript stuff but can fully enjoy a mostly static (boring?) yet functional website.


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## ekingston (Aug 1, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> After setting up my first website over the last few days, I have a question.
> 
> If for 5 bucks a month I can host my own website.
> With a 1Terrabtye/month rate I could have lots of visitors and some descent content.
> ...



The little guys do it for the revenue they get from displaying ads. The ad companies pay your website per "view" (as in the number of times someone loads the page with your ad and often pay you more when people actually click on the ad.

The big guys (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc.) do it to track people. That's also why you may notice they are often also have their own ad network.



Phishfry said:


> I did web 1.0 in the late '90's. When tools like MacroMedia Dreamweaver and others showed up I really lost interest.
> They were taking the html out of it. My Adobe PageMill did GUI but in a way nicer way that showed the code.
> But Pagemill didn't have shockwaves or fireworks so Adobe bought them! That was it for me.
> I bought a 300 dollar ColdFusion Toolkit and thought that was total garbage. That was my last website building experience.
> ...



You are right. A classic web page can look very modern and interactive with just HTML and CSS. There is no longer a need for the likes of Flash. Javascript is certainly over used...

Over used until you look in detail at how "web services" actually work. Look into RESTful APIs. Now think about it in the classic "client and server model". You write the smart "client" in Javascript (for data manipulation), HTML and CSS for UI. The server is a RESTful API and you can move a lot of the processing over to the client desktop. This saves you on server costs (granted $5 a month isn't much but if you get popular it gets a lot more expensive than $5 a month).



Phishfry said:


> Why is the web so rotten.
> With $5/month websites you would think there would be quality content out the yingyang.
> I find the web underwealming and mostly stale.



The web is so rotten because it is chock full of greedy companies trying to make a but and greedy individuals trying to get the world to give them money for nothing (click-bait).

The people who make the good content often don't have the skills or desires to make their own website (no matter what the cost). So they either dump it on some obscure place like a university web server, or get lost in the dreck that is youtube, twitter, facebook, and such.

Search engines came into existence in an effort to help people find the good information. The companies needed money and sold their sole to the marketing and advertising world to pay for the service costs.

P.S. What's your website?

On your point about it being cheap to host a minecraft server. I imagine your $5 a month server could handle minecraft for you and a friend or two. Could it handle it for 10 people? What about 20?

Server costs need to be based on peak load, not average. Although $5 a month can handle a lot of traffic, it needs to be spread out.


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## SirDice (Aug 1, 2018)

ekingston said:


> The web is so rotten because it is chock full of greedy companies trying to make a buck and greedy individuals trying to get the world to give them money for nothing (click-bait).


This isn't limited to the web. Or this era for that matter. The web is just a reflection of today's society.

(<-- hums Dire Straits - "Money for nothing")


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## ekingston (Aug 1, 2018)

SirDice said:


> This isn't limited to the web. Or this era for that matter. The web is just a reflection of today's society.
> 
> (<-- hums Dire Straits - "Money for nothing")



True. Sad, but true.


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## alexseitsinger (Aug 3, 2018)

Since computers and the internet will continue to integrate with our lives, they inevitably replace older methods and practices of different things. Since we're still experiencing this integration, a lot of these ideas/websites/companies are still relatively new so there's money to be made from its novelty. There is a lot of content out there. Most of it never gets seen, not because it's useless, but because it's drifting in a vast digital ocean. When you have eyeballs on your page, that's a big deal, and it's good. Why not try to earn a living, or anything from it?

What kind of website did you build? I've spent the last five years building web applications using React(Javascript) and Django(Python). If you continue your journey into web development, you will find that Javascript is essential for easily building anything that requires a front-end with dynamic content.


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## drhowarddrfine (Aug 3, 2018)

alexseitsinger said:


> Since computers and the internet will continue to integrate with our lives, they inevitably replace older methods and practices of different things.


Like television. People now stare at their screens, mobile or not, and no longer interact with each other. 

I used to own a large piece of land, 127 acres, out in the country with no internet access. I would drag my workstation down there for a week at a time to work on my, then, new company's projects with only the man pages and a book or two to study. After a while, I'd drive into a small Ozark town to eat or buy groceries or anything to interact with the friendly town folk. It was a wonderful time.


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## Phishfry (Aug 3, 2018)

alexseitsinger said:


> What kind of website did you build?


It's still percolating. I just setup linode with lighttpd and hit the w3 web  site.

So the real question is (for myself) what content do I want to provide. How can I be unique.
So is this a personality contest or just my personal grumblings.
What I l might try is a hardware breakdown site. Just pictures of the insides of embedded appliances.
Its not unique but big sites tend to lean more to laptop upgrades. Lke fix a screen or add memory.
Those sites exist and are good.

But from all my picking through ebay I had to buy more stuff on whim, because nobody has photos of the inside.
It is not unique but there are not multiple overlapping sites either.
And it is something I already do. Just need to document it.
I could do video as www/lighttpd has an h.264 module but I think I prefer stills to start with.
Super high rez ones so you can read the chips..


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## fernandel (Aug 3, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Like television. People now stare at their screens, mobile or not, and no longer interact with each other.
> 
> I used to own a large piece of land, 127 acres, out in the country with no internet access. I would drag my workstation down there for a week at a time to work on my, then, new company's projects with only the man pages and a book or two to study. After a while, I'd drive into a small Ozark town to eat or buy groceries or anything to interact with the friendly town folk. It was a wonderful time.



It is all about what kind of life do you want to have. I am using computer from very long time but I do not using social media. We are still listening music on my Onkio with big Advent speakers, we are going in the pub with friends but phones are not on the table but we are talking but I now from work a young students, boyfriend and girlfriendm sit on the table, each one phone in the hands and messaging. To whom? Why are together. Or I am too old.


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## alexseitsinger (Aug 3, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Like television. People now stare at their screens, mobile or not, and no longer interact with each other.



I hear this a lot. I understand why being glued to a screen is awful. Sometimes, though, I wonder how bad it really is. Lots of people offer little depth, so in that case what is being missed? 



drhowarddrfine said:


> I used to own a large piece of land, 127 acres, out in the country with no internet access. I would drag my workstation down there for a week at a time to work on my, then, new company's projects with only the man pages and a book or two to study. After a while, I'd drive into a small Ozark town to eat or buy groceries or anything to interact with the friendly town folk. It was a wonderful time.



What fun. That sounds like a nice time. Sometimes I find man pages confusing. It's impressive that you managed to learn things with little else. There are still times that I resort to similar mediums to learn something. I like having the material available without requiring access to the internet, in case I don't have it. Sometimes the patient exploration of a topic is the best way to learn it. 



Phishfry said:


> What I l might try is a hardware breakdown site. Just pictures of the insides of embedded appliances.



That sounds good. I would check that out. You should compliment the pictures with tutorials on the different things you do with them.



Phishfry said:


> And it is something I already do. Just need to document it.



This is the best. It's awesome to record your work for future reference.



Phishfry said:


> I could do video as www/lightpd has an h.264 module but I think I prefer stills to start with.



You could just embed YouTube videos into the pages too. You might be able to monetize them there as well that way.


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## alexseitsinger (Aug 3, 2018)

fernandel said:


> Why are together. Or I am too old.



You're not too old, just confused, like others. Lots of applications are built using the same principles used at casinos, etc. Everyone is addicted to their notifications. They can't get away from the next update, even when they're with others.


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## ShelLuser (Aug 3, 2018)

alexseitsinger said:


> Everyone is addicted to their notifications.


I'm not 

(edit)

Actually I think the problem lies elsewhere. It's not so much being addicted to the notifications and/or possible attention you got online: it's about not having the patience to leave that alone and instead focus on the here and now around you.

I get the impression that some people don't seem to realize that those 3 notifications you have now could be 12 notifications in 2 hours or so. Even more cool stuff to go through!


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## fernandel (Aug 3, 2018)

alexseitsinger said:


> You're not too old, just confused, like others. Lots of applications are built using the same principles used at casinos, etc. Everyone is addicted to their notifications. They can't get away from the next update, even when they're with others.


I am not addicted but I am too old.
Each generations has something specific but nowadays generations are much different as was my generation. We have  different view on the life, we have respect to the other people, we knew that  "money don't growing on the tree". We have familly life and my children have the familly life too and we respect each other.
In my time I didn't talk with a girlfriend by phone. We were together, talked, make love...in real not virtual life  and my children were raised the same.
And what I  want to tell is that children are not guilty, Internet is not guilty but parents are because are more strangers to children than parents. How mother or father don't know that son or doughter comming home drunk or toxicated. They knew when police call them and it is too late. How they din't know before?? My parents knew immediately when I came home drunk! 
Naybe I am not just old but different too.


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## getopt (Aug 5, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> Fast forward to 2018 back to the basics. HTML and CSS. What can't you do with it.
> I don't see the need for javascript either. KISS.
> 
> Why is the web so rotten.


I agree 100%. If you look on the code side of web pages it is quite common that you see 2.000+ lines HTML for some very few sentences of information. This is accompanied by some *.js which can hold easily 10.000+ lines each. This state of the art has only one purpose: Money, money, money.

And the game is more money by more data. And even metadata sells.

Since the beginning of this madness you could find words like "teaser" and "breadcrumbs" in the code. These and other words show the mind of the web-programmers.

If you practice KISS in web programming, your primary goal is just passing information. On the other side coding madness is practiced when information offered is for the primary business of running a slowpoke.

The web has become a warzone long time ago. You need to know defense. And if starters do not know they'd better learn fast.

Practicing KISS shows users of your website that you do not intend to attack them and you do not want to help third parties with their attacks.


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## alexseitsinger (Aug 5, 2018)

getopt said:


> I agree 100%. If you look on the code side of web pages it is quite common that you see 2.000+ lines HTML for some very few sentences of information. This is accompanied by some *.js which can hold easily 10.000+ lines each.



This is usually because the code is split up into modules that each serve a specific function. Much like the UNIX principle of doing one thing well. Similarly to the KISS principle, its better not to repeat yourself, so the same code is re-used in multiple places. By the time you see the code, it has been compressed into a form that optimizes execution efficiency, and reduces readability. This means lots of modules are compressed and combined together into the same files.



getopt said:


> This state of the art has only one purpose: Money, money, money.



I'm not sure this is terribly accurate. Your confusing a business model with the ability to do more with the web. Consider my react component (https://github.com/alexseitsinger/text-truncate) which simple truncates text. It uses "state of the art" technology.



getopt said:


> And the game is more money by more data. And even metadata sells.



Metadata can be a lot of things. Understanding the relationship between two sets of data is intelligent and a natural evolutionary step in the progression of the technology. Metadata isn't inherently evil.



getopt said:


> Since the beginning of this madness you could find words like "teaser" and "breadcrumbs" in the code. These and other words show the mind of the web-programmers.



I'm assuming your talking about old SEO practices. Since the web is a large digital ocean with no natural ability to intelligently offer new destinations, its near impossible to be noticed without the use of search engines to drive new traffic. These "teasers" and "breadcrumbs" were used to offer the search engine spiders the ability to index a webpage, so it could be used in other search results. Of course there were people that abused this and used keywords that didn't relate to the page, but its not inherently evil on it's own. Its just another way to let your site gain traffic.



getopt said:


> If you practice KISS in web programming, your primary goal is just passing information. On the other side coding madness is practiced when information offered is for the primary business of running a slowpoke.



I'm not sure I understand why making your site more accessible results in some form of mind control.



getopt said:


> The web has become a warzone long time ago. You need to know defense. And if starters do not know they'd better learn fast.
> 
> Practicing KISS shows users of your website that you do not intend to attack them and you do not want to help third parties with their attacks.



Once again, what constitutes an "attack"? Why is a website attacking someone because it offers more interactivity instead of just static content?


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## drhowarddrfine (Aug 5, 2018)

alexseitsinger said:


> This is usually because the code is split up into modules that each serve a specific function.


I took it to mean this abomination which immediately screams FRAMEWORK! or other atrocities of the "modern web".

```
<div>
    <div>
        <div>
            <p> Hi! This is my web site!</p>
         </div>
    </div>
</div>
```
EDIT: i didn't add enough divs. I've seen far, far worse.



alexseitsinger said:


> Your confusing a business model with the ability to do more with the web.


Nowadays it's too easy to grab any possible source to do a money grab by just adding a plugin to your site and all of a sudden you're partnering with someone with the potential to make a few bucks. Even it's only a few bucks a month, grab enough of them and you might make $20!!!!

But these plugins are what adds to the slowness and crashing of sites.


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## alexseitsinger (Aug 5, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I took it to mean this abomination which immediately screams FRAMEWORK! or other atrocities of the "modern web".
> 
> ```
> <div>
> ...



I actually have to agree about how ugly this code can be. Most of the time, the HTML is following some kind of framework when you see this. If not, its poorly constructed. The web has evolved far away from following the basic HTML and CSS principles it used to. When you're trying to understand a webpage, I can understand why this tree can be frustrating and confusing.



drhowarddrfine said:


> Nowadays it's too easy to grab any possible source to do a money grab by just adding a plugin to your site and all of a sudden you're partnering with someone with the potential to make a few bucks. Even it's only a few bucks a month, grab enough of them and you might make $20!!!!
> 
> But these plugins are what adds to the slowness and crashing of sites.



I agree that advertising is a huge nuisance. Lots of content on the web is monetized by forcing the viewers to be exposed to these advertising networks. Lots of ads are useless and offer little to improve the quality of the site. I wish there were more intelligent and useful ways to advertise that actually contributed to the content one intended to view instead of just windows to buy products loosely related.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Aug 20, 2018)

I use editors/leafpad and graphics/gimp exclusively to build my websites. I just added a subdomain to mine for Demonica.

It's all valid XHTML and CSS, and if you can read this you can easily read my code. It's handwritten, loads very quickly and that's the way I like it.

None of that business with tags floating out in space, there's no point to it.

Did I forget to mention everything is free? No ads or cookies.


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