The US Military was still doing horse cavalry charges during WW2 in the Philippines even as battleships, carriers, and tanks charged forth.
There's a lot of "momentum" to technologies. I'm personally convinced that webrings are one of those ideas that died for good reason. There's just easier ways to organize ourselves online.
I promise you: if you want a big list of links to follow, just start a Wiki. Or share them in your own Lemmy / Mastodon. Or open up your own Subreddit. Its going to be easier.
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If you want to rebuild the feeling of early community-driven internet, then you should be looking up IndieWeb (https://indieweb.org/), and not just trying to resurrect random technologies from 30 years ago.
I'm personally convinced that webrings are one of those ideas that died for good reason.
Except that nothing came up that replaced them.
if you want a big list of links to follow, just start a Wiki.
What wasn't the purpose of webrings, though.
I have no special love for webrings as a mechanism. I do have a love for what they did socially, though. If something else came along that served the same purpose, that would be awesome -- but so far, nothing has. I think that the main reason for that is that the web itself has changed from a place for people to a place for commerce.
Social bonds are formed by humans, not technology. In effect, the technology used is almost a side-effect. You can build social bonds through emails, letters, walking and talking with people.
Today, kids are using Google Documents to communicate with each other in classrooms (ie: sharing links, collaborating on homework, etc. etc.), They don't need Webrings to share a set of links that happen to be on the same subject. In fact, you don't need any real tech at all, it could all just be a bulletin board, it could be a phone number that you leave somewhere with a computer hooked up that everyone connects with a 300 baud modem to. Etc. etc.
Or ya know, a Tweet, a Reddit post, a Facebook message. A google group. Etc. etc.
Comments
The US Military was still doing horse cavalry charges during WW2 in the Philippines even as battleships, carriers, and tanks charged forth.
There's a lot of "momentum" to technologies. I'm personally convinced that webrings are one of those ideas that died for good reason. There's just easier ways to organize ourselves online.
I promise you: if you want a big list of links to follow, just start a Wiki. Or share them in your own Lemmy / Mastodon. Or open up your own Subreddit. Its going to be easier.
----------
If you want to rebuild the feeling of early community-driven internet, then you should be looking up IndieWeb (https://indieweb.org/), and not just trying to resurrect random technologies from 30 years ago.
Except that nothing came up that replaced them.
What wasn't the purpose of webrings, though.
I have no special love for webrings as a mechanism. I do have a love for what they did socially, though. If something else came along that served the same purpose, that would be awesome -- but so far, nothing has. I think that the main reason for that is that the web itself has changed from a place for people to a place for commerce.
Social bonds are formed by humans, not technology. In effect, the technology used is almost a side-effect. You can build social bonds through emails, letters, walking and talking with people.
Today, kids are using Google Documents to communicate with each other in classrooms (ie: sharing links, collaborating on homework, etc. etc.), They don't need Webrings to share a set of links that happen to be on the same subject. In fact, you don't need any real tech at all, it could all just be a bulletin board, it could be a phone number that you leave somewhere with a computer hooked up that everyone connects with a 300 baud modem to. Etc. etc.
Or ya know, a Tweet, a Reddit post, a Facebook message. A google group. Etc. etc.
People who are arguing for webrings are not claiming they're easier. It turns out, if easy is your only metric, Everest would never have been climbed.