Not specifically directed at you, but sort of directed at you:
I wish everyone who pined for the 25-years-ago days of mostly text pages would, instead of pining, just go out there and produce that content they want to see.
Instead of pining, start writing. Hosting is cheap or free, browsers still parse simple HTML, there's nothing stopping anyone from creating a return to that simpler form.
I do and I test my personal website on lynx. Doesn't change the fact that sites like this are under the misguided impression that it's cheaper to ship 2 MB of JavaScript with each request rather than just responding with the fucking 2 KB of article text so they end up looking like:
# I Bought a Book About the Internet From 1994 and None of the Links Worked - Motherboard
#motherboard
Quantcast
[p?c1=2&c2=8568956&cv=2.0&cj=1]
The question isn't one of us creating it, although, unlike those downvoting you, I understand where you come from. The question is, who will (and how to) create a curation of sorts. A Google for the simple web. A one stop shop that encourages barebones simplicity and fosters a community where people only allow a simplified internet, and adtech is a nonstarter.
> It's impossible to produce that content because the culture was very different.
What? It's not at all impossible. Get a server, put whatever you want on it. No one is going to force you to monetize or market anything, or use a Node.js backend with AWS and React, or whatever the kids are doing these days. Basic HTML in a plain text editor still works just fine.
> What? It's not at all impossible. Get a server, put whatever you want on it.
Not in Germany. There is a set of laws called "Impressumspflicht" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressumspflicht) which forces you to add a mandatory imprint on your website. If you do something wrong or forget to include some mandatory information (what is mandatory also depends on the kind of website), you can easily get sued (and this has often happened). In other words: It is not easy for a layperson to set up a website in a way that will not easily become a risk of becoming sued.
The context of this conversation seems to have more to do with code and complexity than legal necessities but point taken. The parent was suggesting it was impossible to create the sort of simple, personal, just for fun sites that people used to, but there's no technical reason for that to be the case.
It just happens that people add unnecessary complexity to their projects nowadays because 1) they use frameworks and tools that facilitate it and 2) it looks better on their resumes.
> The context of this conversation seems to have more to do with code and complexity than legal necessities but point taken
The laws introduce lots of complexity, which leads to lots of requirements in the code. So this is no contradiction.
> It just happens that people add unnecessary complexity to their projects nowadays because 1) they use frameworks and tools that facilitate it and 2) it looks better on their resumes.
And 3) because the law requires such complications (in my personal perspective the largest problem that causes the most headaches). Just to give another, "more EU/less German" example:
For my site, I created a Pelican theme which is HTML-only. There's no JS at all! I plan on publishing the theme eventually, once I'm a bit happier with it. You can see it at https://brashear.me. I'm very happy with how quickly it loads. I mentioned to one of my friends that it feels like upgrading to DSL back in the dial-up days.
You're not going to be in the Alexa top 10,000. Go run a docker container for $3/month to host your site, cache it with cloudflare's free plan and pay $12/year for a domain. Its only $48/yr to host all your content. It's really not that ridiculous.
I wish everyone who pined for the 25-years-ago days of mostly text pages would, instead of pining, just go out there and produce that content they want to see.
Instead of pining, start writing. Hosting is cheap or free, browsers still parse simple HTML, there's nothing stopping anyone from creating a return to that simpler form.