Heavy Kagi user and the idea behind small web was appealing; but how its implemented don't click with me
Their rules excludes an absolute gem like https://www.sheldonbrown.com/ which is, to me, the essence of what we could call the "small web".
Each times the topic pops up, I try a few random ones and never found anything interesting.
There's also novelties like https://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/, this probably hasn't been updated in a decade but that makes it no less interesting.
Then there's exceptionally cool demos like https://thelongestyard.link/q3a-demo/. This sort of thing just doesn't fit in a "blog" format unless you're writing a blog about how you built it and linking out to it.
If anyone knows of a directory of sites like these (preferably with a shuffle option) I'd love to hear about it (and contribute)!
Understandably, he'd like to earn money on his content and I see no problem with that. But for me to visit his site and have Google add yet another tracking event to their "interest pile" about me (I guess i'm in the market for bikes now?) is a bit off putting.
He can't be making more than a few bucks a month through that single ad, right?
He's been dead since 2008, so I assume the banner ad keeps the lights on in the absence of his income and input.
if this is the pinnacle then I want nothing to do with it.
Tl;dr: I feel like the long-tail web (90s) was better, but economics pushed high-update-frequency more-centralized results.
I would also love to go back to Geocities style web interaction, but the medium is the message, and the way the Internet has evolved as a medium means that people don't naturally interact with it in a way that supports regression to that era. Attempts to force it like neocities have a hyperreal quality to them.