this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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No Stupid Questions
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Your framework? The hipster café that"s "temporarily closed" every time you need it.
Haha, there are other language versions links at the bottom. I just started Czech course at university, and I think I will send my group link some time, because it's pretty funny (for a Polish person at least).
I've been around since the early 1980s on BBSs. I think what OP is describing is gopher:// links which were common in the early 1990s. I recall getting news and music tablature that way, but like others said it was boring and there wasn't much else.
To me, 1996 to 2005 was the peak of the Internet experience, especially in the early 2000s when content was increasing. Big business was still oblivious about it, and little forums were able to truly thrive on their own without being on a billion dollar platform.
Web 2.0 was when it all went to shit. I remember the look when it was happening... every website went to white webpages, tons of white space, big-ass sans serif fonts, rounded buttons, and very little actual content, just minimalist screens everywhere. Every website was doing it. I knew at the time that this was symbolic of the vacuousness of the coming Internet.
For a more modern take on gopher consider also checking out gemini if you haven’t already. It is somewhat different yet familiar.
For all y'all talking about the old private internet, it's having a bit of a renaissance. Neocities is on of the big ones, but lots of people are straight up selfhosting them too. It's not like you actually need anything more than a phone to run a static website for the tens of visitors you might get each month.
Here's an example of one. Check the post dates. And the webrings. And the Glitter. And the, well, you get the point.
It wasn't better. Static pages are just boring, you read it one time and then that's it. Not enough people can write plain HTML so it would matter.
The internet today with Lemmy, Mastodon, etc. is way closer to what Tim Berners-Lee imagined that everyone would be a publisher, not only consumer.
You don't have to know or write plain HTML. There are plenty of static page generators that take markdown and generate a site for you. Also, boring is good and yes, read once and don't care next is also good: it's how books work for thousands of years. If you like a site or article/post you'll get back to it sometime, if not that's OK.
Static page generator is already half way to a blog with a database.
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It is kinda ironic having this debate on a platform that isn’t static html
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Because people who make websites want to get paid for them, payment is based on showing ads, ad companies want to maximize tracking via javascript, and if the only javascript is for ad bullshit it's easy to block it so they force the content to load via javascript too.
It's systemically fucked up in a way that goes beyond just the technology itself.
The people that want to make money are not de facto legitimate. Some people want analog slavery too. Some people want fascism. Some people are serial killers. Some people are Google. I see no value in those people. They do not create content I find interesting. The things they fund are opposed to my principals and democracy. Those people buy and sell a part of me to exploit and manipulate me. Those people are criminals. Those people are bad neighbors and have no place in our communities and neighborhoods. We have a right to open public commons free from piracy, pillaging, and slavery. That is the fundamental flaw. The internet is public commons, not a slave market.
Are you denying the fact of capitalism existing on the internet? All you seem to say is idealistic non-statements that don't engage with the answers you're getting to the question you asked (or seemed to ask).
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You do know that there's a less intrusive way of advertising ? Right ?
You do know that advertisers want the ads to be as intrusive as they can make them? Right?
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The 512KB Club is a collection of performance-focused web pages from across the Internet. To qualify your website must satisfy both of the following requirements:
- It must be an actual site that contains a reasonable amount of information, not just a couple of links on a page (more info here).
- Your total UNCOMPRESSED web resources must not exceed 512KB.
https://geminiprotocol.net/ (The site's certificate has expired. I really hope they fix it.)
Gemini is a group of technologies similar to the ones that lie behind your familiar web browser. Using Gemini, you can explore an online collection of written documents which can link to other written documents. The main difference is that Gemini approaches this task with a strong philosophy of "keep it simple" and "less is enough".
Gemini might be of interest to you if you:
- Are sick and tired of nagging newsletter subscription pop-ups, obnoxious adverts, autoplaying videos that chase you as you scroll and other misfeatures of the modern web
Signed certificates cost money. Notepad++ had a similar problem where they lost their certificate recently. They temprarily added a self-signed certificate until they could find a sponsor for a signed certificate. I think they fixed that now
Used to, until Letsencrypt started proiding free ones. These days, cost is no excuse.
I qualify for the 512kb club, that's mint!
Going to add my site to the list
Also it's great to see sites that don't have a butt load of JS and ads and other crap!
Came here to post about Gemini, that's what they want
You can. What makes you think you can't?
The thing is that there's no demand, not least because there's no direct interaction between users. People yell bloody murder if a game doesn't have some sort of multiplayer component and static content is single player internet.
It takes a critical mass of like minded people.
That is not really the point here. The actual question is more about stopping the evolution of hardware and software deprecation, like creating a minimum system that is never updated.
Oh right , i forget; this is not "no disingenuous questions". Hard to tell sometimes.
You want a decent webpage AND attention / clicks?
Your problem is not the coding of the webpage. pebkac.
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Huh? I don't understand, are you saying you can't have static websites on today's hard/software? I'm so confused.
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I miss webrings. Especially for mods.
Nexus is great, but i remember when darkone started it with Morrowind mods.
Everything2.com
feels like the old 'net.
Tons of content.
There are still fragments of the old internet around, though I agree that it's nothing like it once was..
The why: because a lot of people have been conned into "needing" sites that can fry the client's CPU, to the point where the con became the norm.
Another why: it's easier to woo bosses/higher ups/clients when you show them pretty visuals. Doesn't matter that the visuals are a fucking atrocity of spaghetti code, now they DEMAND pretty everything everywhere, fuck being practical or lightweight
Uhm, Gemini web?
I made a Gemini site once and then I was like "that was fun" and then it was over. 😅
I run a website where my community and I all contribute to a free shared database that houses settings for machines we can use. I don't know how I'd really do that without managing every single submission manually. I think that like all things there's a way to use js responsibly.
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I've been saying the same thing. I think you should check out Gopher and neocities.
You can get a blacklist of all the sites you hate off gitthub and put it in ublock. They have a massive ai and Javascript list I think.
I agree. Early 2000s was peak internet before corporate enshit. But you dont need to live in their world. You need webrings and rss.
I would just like to add my favorite way to surf the old web is to go to https://wiby.me/ and click "surprise me..." and then either keep doing that or scour their link sections for more similar sites.
I have one browser profile with js disabled and have been slowly migrating to it. It's soooo fast. Barring any issues with the website, each click-and-render is waaay faster than any SPA, back button is instantaneous.
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Developers are dumb and/or burned out by leadership and can't be arsed to use the right tool for the right job. New blog? React.j. Ecommerce? React.js. Wiki? React.js. A fucking landing page reading "Coming Soon!"? Believe it or not, React.js. And unless provided by whatever metaframework they're using this week, forget about appropriately-sized images and videos. You will render a 2000x3000 pixel PNG of the letter A on your 720p smartphone, and you will like it.
We can have static HTML websites, but that basically limits you to sharing static information (which, by the way, still have "bugs" in the form of typos). There's already lots of great resources for that. Wikipedia, personal blogs, books (physical and electronic). That's not usually what we're on the internet for though. We're here for interactivity. We want to connect with other people (e.g. Lemmy), and we want tools to help us with various problems we have (e.g. any portable software that just needs a browser to run). Avoiding JS would hinder that goal. If you just want to read, go to your local library, take out a book, and start reading. Or get an e-reader and download some e-books.
You also point out the problem of online privacy. While JS does empower the tracking, it also does way more than that. The solution shouldn't be to throw out the baby with the bath water.
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Market demand. A "boring" static website isn't going to attract VC funding and management approval.
Sometimes I remember the joy of using Gopher or dial-up BBSs and cry actual tears. Nothing makes me feel older.
Fine with that. My favourite blog was like that.
I can make one super fast but if my internet gets reset I'd have to share my IP again since I don't have a domain name and my ISP gives me a random IP every time the modem is reset. It also might get me some kind of notice if there's enough traffic because the home service isn't meant to he used to run a server like that. I actually kinda wonder what they'd do if I hosted some new SM site that blew up into the next Twitter... 🤔 Can I get $40B?
This is a goldmine of a post, I will bookmark all those minimalist websites
No profit to be made with that, and fixed costs are still fixed. Why make an efficient static page for 6 dollars per month when you can make several hundred pages with AI and make 15 cents?
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