Rediscovering the Small Web

My aim is not to convince you that everything was better in the past; it wasn't. You had trojans, malware, endless pop-ups, terrible security practices, browser incompatibility, slow Java applets. No, technically, the modern web is more secure and more usable.

Some of you might have read my previous article, Against an Increasingly User Hostile Web. In it, I argue that we are replacing an open web that connects and empowers with one that restricts and commoditises people. I talk about how the modern web of surveillance, bloat and walled gardens is at odds with the open web that I love.

This essay is my attempt to show you what the small and independent web can look like, why it’s different from the the sites that dominate web traffic today, why it's worth exploring and how easy it is for anyone to be a part of it.

What this means is that web users end up interacting and spending most of their time on the visible, predatory commercial web, while the very long tail of smaller, amateur websites remains hidden in the noise.