Do you think the World Web Web is on its way out?
Not the internet that's here to stay but websites.
My sister is 12 and she is always on here phone and never leaves the walled garden of Instragram, Snapchat or Youtube. I think she is a good example of the trend that is here of the death of the website.
To me it seems besides paid web services, the content filled website is dying.
Thoughts?
I think so. I moderate a ranger truck specific forum and traffic is steadily decreasing. It has the best tech section specific to these trucks, which helps keep some new users coming in, but I see half or less traffic compared to a few years ago.
There is not as much instant gratification in the static website compared to social media sites. Also there is a lot of like-mindedness in the social media that is algorithm driven spoon fed to the user.
I think they'll never die the same way fm radio and books will never die.
I think a lot of people aren't going to be willing to install apps for all the websites they visit. I doubt it will completely die out, but people are effectively starting to replace their laptops with tablets and so forth.
I don't think The Web is ever going completely away - but it's size is going to probably decrease substantially.
This is a good thing! Essentially, it'll rid the web of all the regular users and we can stop with all this candy coated Web 2.0, HTML 5 stuff and get back to what made the web great - fringe nerds making personal/organizational webpages. Essentially the web will go underground.
I guess there's a few good things - the exit of the regular users, refocus on content rather than shiney looks, and those of us who are left can still use all the useful stuff developers made to satisfy the regular users "needs to be pretty" needs (bootstrap).
In other words the web will have made progress, we'll be back to where we were, but able to develop sites faster. Hurrah!
I agree with @cotton . If things keep going the way they are, there's going to he a huge divide between internet users. With the internet in general (google, YouTube, Facebook) becoming more and more locked down, there will be users who are okay with the new rules and regulations who stay on those platforms, and those that don't. The ones that don't; the community, will create what the internet used to be. I believe at some point, or even already, our governments will pass laws that attempt to eradicate internet freedom and its going to be a cat and mouse game working against those laws. I'm sure its clear though for the internet to survive the future and remain free as it always has been, there needs to be some serious changes in our government structure and its motives (torches and pitchforks to reduce the NSA's power, anyone?)
The death of the web/design started back when corporations started snatching up/stealing all freely shared images code, content and locking them behind paywalls( any tools that my be useful in that regard ) then using the legal system to stamp out anything they didn't like. My two sense for what it is worth. User created sites will be treated as underground and/or bad. This all started along time ago.
Hey man, pretty sites are nice.
I think what he meant to say was, functionality based UI would come back, (and is better) rather than " eye candy UI ".
If the web died tomorrow the world would go on without it. Simple as that.
I have seen the opposite for some corporate places where its more economic to develop a website that is mobile friendly instead of trying to develop mobile apps for their agents and faculty.
Mobile apps are a pain in the ass, mobile-first webapps are the way to go.
Hmm I wouldn't know. Only sites I really go to have a mobile-first approach.
Until there's porn on the internet, the internet will never die.
Getting back on topic: your sister has just started approaching the internet and technology in general so I guess this is just a phase she's going through. When I was I kid I used to turn on the PC to do the same things over and over again because I didn't know any better. But when I started talking with others about games and things to do and as I grew up my horizons got wider and wider.
I see the trend you're talking about but I don't think it's as drastic as you might think.
Just the opposite. I think apps are dead. Have you ever tried to make real money on either of the major app stores? Good frackin' luck. It's a race to the bottom.
A simple question that belies an incredibly broad topic. Generally I would agree that the web as we knew it is pretty much gone.
Smaller communities are an interesting case study, @alwaysFLOoReD makes me think of smaller music/guitar oriented forums I used to frequent. They still exist but have become ghost towns, some users were actually discussing the situation not too long ago. It's clear that where new blood would once have entered these communities (such as myself 10 years ago) people are now gravitating towards Facebook groups instead. And as older members eventually move on the sites find themselves slowly shrinking. It seems much harder for small communities with specialist interest to flourish when a surrogate already exists within the bowls of social media. There is a generation who have invested too much of themselves in social media; they are perfectly happy with this and see it as a way to expand the scope of their interest inspite of reservations concerning the quality and suitability of the platform, others (the site admins) disagree. But these are all behavioural changes.
What's really interesting to me right now is how the larger monopolies of the web are moving towards an editorial position; Facebook with 'fake news', Google search algorithm changes post 'Holocaust' debacle etc. I don't much care about the notion of a 'walled garden without windows' because everyone has their own bias anyway. But these editorial changes will have a fundamental impact on how these platforms work. Imagine searching Google for 'Deer hunting season' and the top result is 'PETA', or search for 'socialist healthcare' and find yourself directed to a page by a right-wing think tank. These are stupid examples, but the point is that there could very quickly be a gap in the market. A curated web is fine for 99% of people until the day they can't find that one thing they are looking for.
Simultaneously, pay-walled content might also become more prolific with HTML5 EME. So all in all we might end up with a great number of walled, curated gardens. People may become acclimatised to this but will always keep an eye out for a free alternative.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think user perception of the web could change a great deal in the coming years and that might present an opportunity for content rich websites. It's an uphill struggle though, everyone wants a monopoly and in the least everyone wants to make a living!
Sorry for rambling, just a topic I find very interesting :)
Web is always changing.
I think that while the web in general is suffering. It's, at this point, more of a marketing issue. The only reason I hopped back on this platform was because @wendell said that they had just taken ownership of the original forums. If it wasn't for the consistent content reminding me of the forums I wouldn't have come back. Now why is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Thriving at the moment? It's because they sold an idea, there's nothing convenient about downloading FB and messenger... Two slow, constantly updating, poorly written apps (with crap UI). Or Instagram, full of pages of vapid egomaniacs revealing their retardation to the rest of the world. Snapchat, the idea that you can send anything you want, legal or not, and most likely not get in trouble for it. I could go on, but I kind of don't want to.
Now another thing you can take from this is that all these apps are low cost (such as taking a picture of your lunch), and low risk (no dislike/downvote).
If you sell an idea, and are low risk, and the reward is great enough... You will win the majority. Communities will get smaller, though the amount of retards will rapidly approach 0. Though they will never fully go away, in the upcoming years all communities will start becoming tight knit. Well, maybe not forums like Onision's but hopefully pedos like him get shut down.
So will the web die? No, people who have a brain that properly functions will most likely start abandoning social media. Heck I see it already happening. Friends have started going back to email, completely avoiding social media, hanging out on discord, etc. It's only a matter of time before they rediscover forums. Well that's the hope anyway.
hopefully they learn that there's more to research than just Wikipedia before asking on social media... But that's another rant for another day.
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Websites will never die they shall overcome and will always thrive.
If the question is about "the content filled website" then I think it is dying.
Like @ir7xps said; the new users are on facebook and the old users aren't enough to keep it going.
There are exceptions such as wikipedia or sites that make money directly (e.g. insurance comparison sites) - these have/will transition to be mobile-friendly but that's not a bad thing.
Facebook has killed so much for me, because the audience/others have moved on.
Web-based chat rooms, IRC, ICQ, Small forums of just my real-life friends, personal web pages (ISP hosted, geocities, etc). It's all gone for me because of facebook.
Initially I mourned the loss but now I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I now look at it like this; The unwashed masses have all been rounded up and thrown into facebook leaving the rest of us to enjoy the real internet again.