The Modern Web Nightmare
January 30, 2025
Browsing the Web today feels like an exercise in futility. Readers are almost always under the constant assault of advertisements.
Don’t get me wrong, the web has always been filled with examples of annoyance. Anyone who suffered through the early days of the web will recall (possibly with some nostalgic fondness) the days of blinking red text, under construction warnings and let’s just say “Geocities” and leave it at that.
But today, people’s monetization efforts have transformed the typical web browsing experience into an ad filled nightmare that just seems to be getting worse.
If it was just static advertisements, I might feel less vitriol towards the entire situation. Its the various types of pop-up advertisement techniques designed to maximize the readers focus not on the content, but on the advertisement that drives me really insane.
Click this miniscule “X” to close this ad. Sure. Nine times out of ten the “X” is either too small, taking you out of the page, or it’s not designed to actually close the ad at all leading one on more unexpected jumps and journeys.
The effect of which on browsing from a phone can often times be exponentially worse than a desktop.
I find myself wondering if the decision to ruin a web page with advertisements it ever really worth it for the vast majority of people publishing content on the web. Is it making these people rich? In most cases I imagine it isn’t.
The saying “to each his own”“Suum cuique” or “Unicuique suum”, is a Latin phrase often translated as “to each his own” or “may all get their due.” Suum cuique has been significant in the history of philosophy and as a motto. (LINK) aptly applies in this situation of course, but it’s exhausting for the reader, your intended audience.
Recently I rekindled my interest in a truly ancient internet technology called “gopher”.
So what is Gopher?
In short, Gopher was the precursor to the modern web that everyone knows today.
It is in many ways a text based “web page” that can be browsed using the gopher protocol or via a conventional web browser using a siteSee Floodgap Gopher Server Web Interface (LINK) that bridges the gap between the web and gopher.
Gopher was created by a team led by Mark P. McCahill at the University of Minnesota.
"The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presented an alternative to the World Wide Web in its early stages, but ultimately fell into disfavor, yielding to Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The Gopher ecosystem is often regarded as the effective predecessor of the World Wide Web."
The effect, is unlikely anything you experience with the modern web, especially so if you browse gopher sites using a terminal and keyboard. But even if you are using a website to browse gopher sites, the experience is blissfully advertisement free.
What you see is what you get which is refreshing beyond belief. And as someone who has authored his own gopher pages in the past, it couldn’t be simpler. All of your effort goes into the content text (with maybe some ASCII art thrown in for good measure).
Archaic? Maybe. But something I encourage people to check out when they have some time.