Information Superhighway

I was recently listening to the podcast, Imagining Arc, from The Browser Company, a startup that makes the web browser app I use, Arc. The podcast is meant as a quick behind the scenes as they develop Arc, which is a fairly big departure from other web browsers.

There was a quote in the latest episode I’ve been pondering over since I heard it. Here it is:

The web as information superhighway has been replaced by the web as application platform.

I’m not sure why, but I even though this seems clear now, I don’t think I’ve heard this articulated in this way. Additionally, this is not a binary: it can be both things at once—but it does feel like the balance has shifted. The web is not primarily the place where you gain new information; it’s where you go to check your email or whatever.

Recently some friends and I were talking about the ephemerality of the internet. One friend asked how you prepare to host something online for twenty, thirty years; a task that felt impossible to me. Once you increase the complexity beyond serving plain HTML & CSS, all bets are off. Some microservice, some piece of tech will break, leaving the site inoperable. Links decay faster than uranium. I think a lot about another quote from a friend of mine, a software engineer, who compared the current era to a new dark age: in 100 years, there might be nothing left.

I recently saw this page with a concept for the “Monospace Web,” as the designer Oskar Wickström calls it. It’s not hard to imagine a site like this sticking around for a long time, assuming the hardware holds up, but it is hard to imagine this becoming the standard outside of extremely niche circles.

Of course, there are those working to prevent this. Groups like the Internet Archive, and even small-time data hoarders are preserving things that otherwise might be lost. That’s part of what I love about torrenting; there’s something so special and intimate about connecting to another person’s computer, sharing a file, before sharing it again yourself. Passing the torch of human culture.

I have to admit, when I heard that quote in Imagining Arc, it made me kind of sad. I don’t know, knowledge, information, data feels unassailable to me; an objective good, compared to something vapid like hours spent scrolling Instagram. That’s not to say there aren’t apps that I enjoy using online. I’ve started to get back into tracking my reading on Hardcover, one of the new Goodreads alternatives. I don’t really care much for reviews or algorithmic recommendations or anything, but I would like a list of the books I own, what I’ve read, etc. I’ve written a few times about Retro, which feels like the photo sharing app I want now. I can post both my “nice” photos, as well as snaps I take of my daily life, to just the select friends I want to share images with. There’s little to no context, and it feels better that way.

In the rest of the podcast, they talked about trying to build Arc in a way that does your busywork for you, so you can focus on what matters.

Well, what matters? What do I want the web to do?

I guess I want the web to do what I want art to do: make a bridge between myself and another person, show me something that fascinates them, resonates with them, or moves them, and makes me closer to them if only for a brief moment. Some of the moments I’ve felt most happy online are the moments I’ve felt this sense of connection most strongly: trading Pokémon via IRC chat, downloading a file truly peer-to-peer, or simply finding someone’s personal site they clearly put a lot of effort into.

I recently posted that the best websites feel esoteric, which seemed to resonate with a few people. It’s one of the gaps I feel between the way this site works now, and how I’d like it to work (learning Handlebars to rebuild the homepage is on my todo list, someday). A personal website should reflect its creator in both content and form. This process makes esoteric sites naturally; the more you focus on and express what's uniquely you, the more a site feels loved.

Right now, I like my little network of sites: blog, photos, and bio—but the more professional they shift, the less they feel like me. It's a balance, like all things. But I want to remind myself it's okay for some things to not be perfectly straightforward. I think about the pleasure I get from finding others' loved sites. Web pages that clearly felt labored over, meant to illustrate or share something another person found important. Being asked to look closer is an act of care—and couldn't we all use a bit more of that now?