The web doesn't exist

It’s not just, as I’ve long thought, that the web has gone to shit. It’s that the web, as I think of it, no longer exists.

When I think of the web, I think of a network of weird and interesting sites made by weird and interesting human beings. This is not what the web is now - it’s a handful of silos that hoover up, brand and monetise everything else.

Small sites still exist, of course. But they’re drowned out by the cacophony of capitalist slop. The small web movement is cool, and there are some lovely small websites, but it increasingly feels like trying to hold a book club in a busy shopping centre.

So I’ll use the ‘web apps’, to the extent that I do, but I’ll find the humans I used to look for on the web over on Gemini and Gopher. I’d love to bump into you over there!