Actually, I'd be interested in an alternative web where ingenuity and risk-taking would be utterly forbidden. Just HTML, and a very basic subset at that. No Javascript at all, no CSS.
So much of the web would be better and more universally usable without "modern" cruft.
Is data journalism cruft? Are web applications? Is Google Office cruft? What about the web application my parents have been using to order groceries during the pandemic - that has loads of JS, and loads of CSS to make it readable to anyone over 40. Does that qualify as cruft?
Are dyslexia friendly styelsheets cruft? Is Google Maps cruft? It's full of JavaScript. Are browser games cruft? I played QuakeJS last night and had a lot of fun with it. I was also using a WebXR 3D app the other day to preview a rental property remotely - is being able
to socially distance myself cruft?
It's all cruft until you ask the people who use it.
That it works is table stakes. A web application your parents wouldn't be able to use to order groceries because it was so broken wouldn't even be discussed, it would be pulled off the Internet and replaced with something that works.
The criticism about cruft is one level up. Not about how to accomplish something, but how to do it in a way that isn't extremely wasteful of both computer resources and end-user's time.
Most of that doesn't belong on the alternative web I have in mind. It can keep living on the current one.
Usability features like dyslexia friendly fonts, large fonts, etc., belong in the browser, not on a web page. If anything, this would be easier on the alternative web.
The key idea would be that when you go to a URL on this alternative web, you know you're not going to get slammed with some cycle-sucking, RAM-sucking, virus-carrying, UI horror. More gopher-ish, but relatable to those who have used a web browser.
I can dream.
edit: Ha. Right now, this comment has 6 points, and my original above has -2 points. My illusions of HN rationality are thus reduced. sniff
Browser vendors do. Popups were cruft. Flash was cruft. Not all the time. Just almost all the time.
Ever used Reader View? There's the great de-cruftifier! It doesn't work with web apps, but it sure works great on content. Perhaps some day browsers will default to Reader View, and the web will become more pleasant.
> Actually, I'd be interested in an alternative web where ingenuity and risk-taking would be utterly forbidden. Just HTML, and a very basic subset at that. No Javascript at all, no CSS.
Definitely. A lot of the "ingenuity and risk-taking" are efforts to make the web something it was never indented to be (e.g. a binary(ish) application runtime/delivery platform) that has lots of downsides.
I was thinking about this though not quite as severe. I would also love to see something like this in the end though. It sucks that as a mobile user I'm paying for analytics, unoptimized images, and poorly-written code when just simple markup and text would do. With the speed at modern networks run server-side processing shouldn't be as taboo.
One reason for a minimal web would be the idea that I could one-day be living on the far end of a rather slow modem as my only Internet connection. Sucking ten tons of Javascript/images/adtech down a link like that would be pretty awful.
Didn't think of it before, but your "server-side" suggestion could minimize some of the pain of that, I guess. Low-bandwidth VNC on the client to a browser that's actually running in a DC somewhere. Maybe a VNC add-on to block/freeze rapidly updating squares (videos, gifs, etc).
Not great, exactly, but would ameliorate some of this.
Alternative Web? The big "selling" point of Mosaic and other early Web browsers was bringing diverse information sources together into one application! Gopher, WWW, WAIS, FTP, and probably others, all available in one program, and a GUI program at that, unless you were stuck using Lynx over SLIP or some other bizarre excrescence of the dial-up age.
The fact Web browsers won rather disproves your whole notion.
I guess. The fact that no human can plausibly consider writing their own web browser from scratch these days seems telling. Nor really can any real human seriously consider finding a bug in a web browser, tracking it down in the source code, and submitting a patch.
Web browsers have become satanic mega-behemoths of inscrutable code. (I'm too lazy to look--are there more lines in Chrome, deps included, or the Linux kernel?) They are the utter antipode of the Unix philosophy, and arguably an engineering abomination.
It exists right here and now. Disable javascript - almost everything works. You can disable CSS and images as well - just a few clicks in uBlock Origin on uMatrix [0].
People with Vision Lost browse the web. No need for separate web.
So much of the web would be better and more universally usable without "modern" cruft.