I feel like he's worrying but he isn't sure about what. I don't think the problems of the internet are related to how easily people can make their own sites. It's just that the feeling that your content might actually be seen and appreciated is gone. In the 1990s if you published something online it felt good like some people are going to read this and care. Now it feels like "hey another ball tossed into the massive gaping void".
Part of this obviously is about search and curation. Part of it also is probably just the massive loss of intimacy on the web now that it is so big. It's easy to feel less relevant when you get a few hundred views, even though in the 1990s you might also have got only a few hundred views.
So what I'd like is to have a new intimate internet. It would be effectively searchable by a Google equivalent that only indexed a small subset of the internet. How exclusive it would be, how exactly it is curated and managed I have zero idea. I'm just saying that is what I would like.
Now HN: unleash your list of stuff like this that already exists.
You want an “intimate Internet” with its own search capability to restore the feel of the early web? Probably we should make sure it’s easy for less technical people to use. Needs a good story around mobile and rich media.
Oh dear, we’ve reinvented Facebook!
Seriously though, I think this is more about community than technology, and more about channel saturation than centralization.
I think the best shot for what you want is the re-distributed web and niche social networks (subreddits?). The peer-based web stuff will give you that feeling of being ahead of the masses on tech, and subreddits for your favorite hobby will let you connect with people who care about your random thing.
As some have pointed out this could be viewed just as a social media network. The issue with all social media and with HN as well and which doesn't fit the paradigm I was trying to articulate is that content is pushed to you in a feed.
Quite apart from centralisation, comments, chat, commerce and ads which I also don't want, I view the Feed as really the bad thing. Instead of my mind controlling what I am interested in and would like to know about, the feed gives me a range of topics and things to take an interest in.
I know there will always be a feed somewhere, but online it becomes compulsive.
Honestly, this is exactly the problem that Facebook (and other social media like HN) solve. I can write a blog post/article and rather than tossing it into the void, I share it on Facebook or a suitable subreddit or here. And while I may get a small number of views, they're likely to be from people I care about (either friends or people in the same hobby community), and those people have a chance to respond and comment.
There's already such a thing. Local subreddits, Facebook groups, GitHub issues etc. They all have their regulars. I'm fairly involved in my community with http://allaboutberlin.com/, and I've made a few IRL friends just writing for that website.
Part of this obviously is about search and curation. Part of it also is probably just the massive loss of intimacy on the web now that it is so big. It's easy to feel less relevant when you get a few hundred views, even though in the 1990s you might also have got only a few hundred views.
So what I'd like is to have a new intimate internet. It would be effectively searchable by a Google equivalent that only indexed a small subset of the internet. How exclusive it would be, how exactly it is curated and managed I have zero idea. I'm just saying that is what I would like.
Now HN: unleash your list of stuff like this that already exists.