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And Now, a Brief Definition of the Web (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the web-in-2017 dept.

Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge: Traditionally, we think of the web as a combination of a set of specific technologies paired with some core philosophical principles. The problem -- the reason this question even matters -- is that there are a lot of potential replacements for the parts of the web that fix what's broken with technology, while undermining the principles that ought to go with it. [...] A lot of tech companies are flailing around looking for ways to fix this problem. There are web apps that work in Chrome but not really all that well elsewhere. There are Instant Articles in Facebook and AMP pages on Google. There are Instant Android apps that stream to your phone over the internet instead of being installed, which go away when you're done with them just like a browser tab. Google claims to be trying to bring some of the open ethos of the web to smart speakers. Hell, go back to 2014 and you'll find Apple pundit John Gruber arguing we should consider apps and "anything transmitted using HTTP and HTTPS" as part of the web. [...] And now, a brief definition of the web: To count as being part of the web, your app or page must: 1. Be linkable, and 2. Allow any client to access it. That's it.

44 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Um...okay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is all common sense, why is this being posted here? Probably enlightening to our moronic moderators though.

    1. Re:Um...okay? by doom · · Score: 1

      It gives us an excuse to bitch about stuff that we hate.

  2. Here's my definition of the web... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Pre-Internet: < 1995, THE WEB, post-Internet: > 1995

    1. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by Barefoot+Monkey · · Score: 1

      And during 1995 it was The Information Super-Highway

      Thankfully that didn't last long.

    2. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by xevioso · · Score: 1

      The web browser is not ON the web. It allows you to view applications and web pages on the web, but it, by itself, is not on the web; you can view pages locally even if you are not connected to the internet.

    3. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Apparently not a spell checker, there's no such word as "pre-dominant".

      I meant "predominant," not sure why I put in a hyphen.

    4. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

      Pre-Internet: < 1995, THE WEB, post-Internet: > 1995 </ 1995, THE WEB, post-Internet: >

      You left out the closing tag. This is the web after all.

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    5. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by shoor · · Score: 1

      I was using usenet and email from the mid 1980s. I don't even completely understand the definition about 'link to' and 'app', but maybe if I'd followed the link I would.

      What this shows is that "the web" isn't clearly defined in most people's minds. So there's a communication problem right there.

      To me, "the web" is the physical infrastructure that allows communication using the internet protocol (with IP addresses like 8.8.8.8 that can be resolved using nameservers) and port numbers. If you don't know what I'm talking about, try issuing the command "ping -c 1 8.8.8.8" from the command line, then replace "8,8,8,8" with "google.com". The "google.com" works because a nameserver is involved. That's the internet to me. (If you don't know what a command line is never mind, I'm just doing some nerdy rambling.)

      When I saw the word 'philosophical' in the article, I thought of how the philosophical ideal would be to have that infrastructure removed from all the vagaries of politics, special interests, etc. The only way I could see that happening though, would be with some great techonological breakthrough. In the early days of Ham Radio, Ham operators transmitted and received messages using their own radio sets. I'm not an expert on Ham Radio, but I imagine that for a brief time, they were able to communicate freely with each other limited only by technology. Which would have been a big limitation but at least it was an impersonal one, unlike politics and special interests. This ideal wouldn't have lasted long before the radio bandwidth got clogged and had to be regulated. Some of that clogging (but not all) was due to commercial broadcast stations. I use Ham radio as an example to try to suggest the form that an ideal internet might take, with personal devices being able to send messages to any other device without the intermediaries of backbone sites (which are expensive and therefore provided by rich powerful governments and special interests,) Sigh, if only it weren't for those pesky technological limitations.

      --
      In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
    6. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      What's the pre-dominant application on the web today? The web browser.

      Tautology.

      When did the web browser came into existence? 1995.

      NCSA Mosaic was released to the public in 1993. The CERN web server was released in 1991, and while I don't find a reference to the browser date, there needs to be a browser if the server has any use.

      What year did the unwashed masses discover the web? 1995.

      I have no idea what action you are crediting this to, but Eternal September was in 1993 when AOL brought them to USENET. I believe AOL also had web access for its users, but I never used them.

      What application did the unwashed masses use to access the web? The web browser.

      Another tautology. What is your point? Anything a web browser does is part of the web? No, FTP and SMB are not part of the web; yet you can use FTP or SMB (and many other) access protocols through most modern web clients. Anything that you get through a web server is part of the web? Another tautology.

    7. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I have no idea what action you are crediting this to, but Eternal September was in 1993 when AOL brought them to USENET. I

      "May 26, 1995: Gates, Microsoft Jump on "Internet Tidal Wave"

      https://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/

    8. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      To me, "the web" is the physical infrastructure that allows communication using the internet protocol (with IP addresses like 8.8.8.8 that can be resolved using nameservers) and port numbers.

      No. That's the Internet (or internet, if you prefer.) The Web is one thing transported on the Internet. Email, FTP, and a host of other services are also part of The Internet, but they are not The Web.

      This ideal wouldn't have lasted long before the radio bandwidth got clogged and had to be regulated.

      Amateur radio started after governments came into existence, and in fact, exists only because regulations define it.

    9. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      To be more precise, the web is just another application, and your web browser transmits and receives data from the web server over the internet, using the internet protocol suite. The word "web" refers to content linking to other content, an allegory to a spiderweb. The word "internet" is short for "internetwork" and literally means multiple networks communicating with one another (as opposed to two devices communicating on one network.)

      The web works without the internet, and the internet works without the web.

    10. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      What's the pre-dominant application on the web today? The web browser.

      The web itself IS just an application. You have to understand that the internet and the web are not the same thing, and in fact work independently of one another, or rather, they don't need one another to work, at all.

      When did the web browser came into existence? 1995.

      Nope, it was definitely 1990.

      What year did the unwashed masses discover the web? 1995.

      Depends on how you define unwashed masses. The "digital divide" certainly hadn't passed 50% by that time, and "online services" were still what most of them used, with very few actually using the web.

      What application did the unwashed masses use to access the web? The web browser.

      For the web? Yeah, but most people didn't use it.

      Back in 1995, online services like AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy still reigned supreme for most laypeople, or the "unwashed masses" as you put it (and just before that, BBSes reigned supreme.) (What also reigned supreme among the masses was the concept of paying by how long you were connected, measured in hours.) To them, being "online" meant using an online service GUI, and you maybe had very limited web access through it, but most people just stuck to the online service specific content, which wasn't web based.

      Just to give you an idea, nowadays companies give you their facebook identities, twitter handles, youtube channels, etc. But back in these days, social media involved things like "AOL keywords" or "Compuserve Go" prompts. That said, anybody who tells you that the old days were better because people didn't think "facebook" was the internet doesn't actually remember what the older days looked like.

      These services also weren't internet services in the sense that when you dialed in, you didn't use the internet protocol suite, rather you used some protocol(s) specific to that provider. If you needed to communicate across the internet, then their application provided its own sockets for your programs (i.e. netscape navigator, IRC clients, etc) to communicate with.

      I personally only used regular internet service providers because Kali and Quake didn't work terribly well with online services, assuming they even worked at all.

    11. Re:Here's my definition of the web... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      To me, "the web" is the physical infrastructure that allows communication using the internet protocol (with IP addresses like 8.8.8.8 that can be resolved using nameservers) and port numbers. If you don't know what I'm talking about, try issuing the command "ping -c 1 8.8.8.8" from the command line, then replace "8,8,8,8" with "google.com". The "google.com" works because a nameserver is involved. That's the internet to me.

      To you maybe, but this is very far removed from reality.

      - The web is not physical any more than the last song you downloaded is physical. It's literally just an application, and it works with or without the internet. That HTTP you type in URLs is completely optional in the sense that you don't have to use HTTP. If your web page is coded for it. you could "surf the web" (as it is called) on FTP, or even if your HTML documents are stored locally, you could "surf" them without even having any kind of network connectivity or even a functional TCP stack.

      - Your example of pinging 8.8.8.8 doesn't involve the web at all, rather that is strictly using the internet. Ping isn't even an application, strictly speaking, rather it's a built in feature of Internet Protocol. (Fun fact: 8.8.8.8 is an anycast IP, as opposed to unicast like the IP your computer uses.)

      (If you don't know what a command line is never mind, I'm just doing some nerdy rambling.)

      Eh...not really. I work with people who are not technical at all, and they still pretty plainly understand what a command line is.

  3. There's one definition by SensitiveMale · · Score: 2

    "Tubes"

    1. Re:There's one definition by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 1

      100% agree. The Internet is the interconnecting pipes. And to correct one part of the summary, "A lot of tech companies are flailing around looking for ways to fix this problem" should be read as "ways to make more profit"

      Big companies don't want to fix anything. They want good numbers for their shareholders. Selling stuff to "fix the problems" is their core business.

    2. Re:There's one definition by Archtech · · Score: 1

      Big companies don't want to fix anything. They want good numbers for their shareholders. Selling stuff to "fix the problems" is their core business.

      They also love to steal other people's ideas - often freely donated to the world - to boost their profits.

      Then they complain, loudly and bitterly, that the ideas aren't perfectly tailored to their thieving business models.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  4. The technology is fine by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    The technology is fine. It's our so-called civilization that's broken, and it's brokenness is what breaks the Internet. Between some nations and their draconic censorship, ISPs mucking about with the flow of information, and criminals using it as a vehicle to attack it and it's users, I'm surprised it works as well as it does. As usual a good thing has been ruined by getting too many PEOPLE involved with it.

    1. Re:The technology is fine by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > The technology is fine.

      No it isn't -- HTML is crap and is the THIRD time the web has been re-invented. It is a pale shadow of what could have been.

      Alan Kay - Normal Considered Harmful

    2. Re:The technology is fine by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      No it isn't -- HTML is crap

      No, it isn't. It's a fine markup language. When it becomes crap is when page designers think it is a publishing language and think that their view of how their HTML should be rendered is the only way their HTML should be rendered.

      and is the THIRD time the web has been re-invented.

      I'm pretty sure that HTML was there at the beginning. I remember writing web pages for the CERN server in HTML. HTML5 is perhaps the fifth redesign, trying to turn a good markup language into something it wasn't meant to be.

      Here's a demonstration of how HTML is not understood at all: the CBS television program "Scorpion" uses the string "</scorpion>", which everyone who knows better understands is the END of a section of type "Scorpion". But they use it at the beginning of the show, and at every commercial break. Is the show over before it starts? It seems not; the comedy continues for the full hour.

  5. Nothing particularly new here by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    "There are web apps that work in Chrome but not really all that well elsewhere."

    10-15 years ago, there were "web apps" that worked in Internet Explorer but not really at all well elsewhere.

    Google decided, a couple years ago, to basically go that same route... and probably for the same reasons. It's all about lock-in.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Nothing particularly new here by barbariccow · · Score: 1

      10-15? Maaan, they're still around. It's died down a little bit since IE9+ somewhat supports that new-fangled "HTML" and "javascript", but there are still a TON of business apps, especially in locked-down environments, which only support IE. A lot of it has to do with those environments historically ONLY providing internet explorer (because, locked-down environment, obviously the most insecure and targeted browser that comes with the most insecure and targeted OS is the way to go!!).

      I, for one, still remember the PAIN for supporting IE. Like IE8 I believe was the one that when it came out, if an element had the same name and id, it wasn't fetchable by ID. My mind is tained with thousands of these "break the API for lock-in sake".

      Thankfully, most of these more modern lockins are more of a "Has a new API that noone else has implemented" (which is still bad... but is kinda the way things go)"

    2. Re:Nothing particularly new here by Archtech · · Score: 1

      Google decided, a couple years ago, to basically go that same route... and probably for the same reasons. It's all about lock-in.

      Or, as far as I'm concerned, lock-out. Because if Google tries to lock us in to Chrome, I will simply not use Chrome.

      The result is a partition of the Web into two segments: 99.9% go on using the Web, while 0.01% can lock themselves into Chrome (if they wish).

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    3. Re:Nothing particularly new here by Etcetera · · Score: 1

      "There are web apps that work in Chrome but not really all that well elsewhere."

      10-15 years ago, there were "web apps" that worked in Internet Explorer but not really at all well elsewhere.

      Google decided, a couple years ago, to basically go that same route... and probably for the same reasons. It's all about lock-in.

      Agreed with lock-in, but what Google is doing is quite different from the Microsoft days.

      Microsoft wanted IE-first support and was battling with Netscape, but didn't have a specific internet tie for the data being transmitted because it was an OS and apps company, not an internet company.

      Google controls 75% of all advertising, half of all smartphones' entire software stacks, and is more than willing to track everything you do, and in fact send all of your web requests out through Google's own servers. "Browser lock-in" takes on an entirely different meaning in today's world.

      --
      Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
  6. AMP needs to die by XanC · · Score: 1

    The real takeaway here is that AMP, and everything similar to it, need to die in a fire.

    Don't use AMP, don't let your clients use AMP, don't click on any AMP links. AMP is cancer.

    1. Re:AMP needs to die by sexconker · · Score: 1

      there's SO many dumb stupid things in JS that sorely need fixed.

      To be, or not to be? I guess you answered that question.

  7. Be linkable? by war4peace · · Score: 3, Informative

    I found less and less stuff to be truly linkable. Some of it is almost linkable, but more often than not I try to bookmark that shit only to click it later and get to some generic page which asks me to manually go through some hoops to get to the specific item I bookmarked in the first place.

    Direct downloads of software installation kits is a prime example.

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  8. and now for the real definition... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To be part of the web, your app or page must:

    1. Collect as much of the user's data as possible. Bonus if you can get their entire social contact graph, page visits from outside your domain, and all their search history.

    2. Work as poorly as possible if the user attempts to push back against your data harvesting by disabling javascript. Bonus points if you can disable the clipboard and "save as".

    3. Load 10X slower than it should due to making connections to two dozen advertising domains.

    4. Attempt to hijack and/or completely break the back button.

    5. Scrunch all the text up in a 5cm wide band in the middle of an 80cm wide monitor, no matter how the user might attempt to resize the window.

    6. Smear content that would easily fit in a single page over 20 pages separated by "next" buttons so you can harvest as many ad impressions as possible.

    7. Attempt to get the user to store all of their data remotely in "the cloud", because you can't easily run big data analytics on it if the user gets to store it on their computer. See also, Gmail.

    8. Partner with national intelligence agencies.

    9. Enforce political based censorship on everyone. Saying $THING is illegal in country $C? Take it down for the whole world.

    10. Load 500KB of random scripts merely to display what could be done with 5KB of plain old HTML.

    11. Make sure standard HTML hyperlinks don't work unless the user enables scripting.

    12. Attempt to use the hardest to read color combinations.

    THAT is how you become part of the modern web.

    1. Re:and now for the real definition... by harperska · · Score: 1

      5.5 Fill the remaining 75cm with ads and 'sponsored content'.

      6.1 Hide the "next" button among at least a half dozen ads that are disguised to also look like next buttons.

      6.5 Break the site completely if adblock is enabled.

    2. Re:and now for the real definition... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      4.1 Pop up an alert if the user tries to close/cancel the page.

      13. Auto-play videos that can't be configured to only start when the user manually clicks play.

      --
      The web was re-invented three times -- first in 1968, 1987, and last in 1993
      Alan Kay - Normal Considered Harmful

    3. Re:and now for the real definition... by Obfuscant · · Score: 2
      5.1 Create pages that are 120% of the window size so you can never see the entire page, ever.

      10.1 Load 5k of "plain old HTML" to display what can be done with 200 bytes of plain old text.

      12.1 Use CSS to configure a link to change to strike-through text when there is a mouse-over, making the link look like it is broken or invalid.

      12.2 Use underline font on random words so they look like active links.

      12.3 Turn random words into active links to pages to define the random words.

      6.3 Fill your page, which is a site to download a bit of useful software, with DOWNLOAD buttons that actually download useless cruft, and put the actual download button all the way at the bottom.

  9. That's protocol-ist by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

    >> HTTP and HTTPS" as part of the web

    That's awfully protocol-ist. (Good thing I'm not an ITJW.) Aside from the original web (which included things like FTP), Apple might be interested to learn that there are content-optimized protocols like QUIC out there.

    1. Re:That's protocol-ist by guyniraxn · · Score: 1

      I was under the belief that the web was just shorthand for world wide web - i.e., web pages. I know that there are web based FTP management tools that doesn't mean FTP is part of the web, no?

    2. Re:That's protocol-ist by harperska · · Score: 1

      Exactly. "The Web" is simply one application of the internet. The web is a set of hypermedia resources that can be linked to one another (hence the term 'web', with a visualization of the hyperlinks appearing as a spider web). If it isn't hypermedia served over the internet, it's not the web but some other internet application. FTP, email, smartphone apps, etc. all use the internet, but are not the web.

    3. Re:That's protocol-ist by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

      To clarify, FTP's part of the web when it's accessed via a URI/URL. E.g.:
      ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/standards/RFC/rfc959.txt

      In that case, it's media served over the Internet from a hyperlink, but the media itself isn't served up via HTTP/S.

    4. Re:That's protocol-ist by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Aside from the original web (which included things like FTP)

      The original web did not include FTP. It was several years before web browsers understood the ftp: scheme, and it appears that at least firefox has no idea what a gopher: scheme is (a protocol that was, at one time, more prevalent than http.) Just because FTP was an internet protocol doesn't mean it was "on the web".

    5. Re:That's protocol-ist by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      To clarify, FTP's part of the web when it's accessed via a URI/URL.

      Uhhh, no. The FTP server (and the entire FTP transaction on the wire) is no different whether the client is a web browser using a URI/URL or an FTP client from the command line.

      Just because a "web browser" has been coopted into doing other things doesn't make everything it touches part of "the web". For example, it would be silly to call a local file on your computer part of the worldwide web ("the web") just because your browser understands the "file" scheme. That file is not part of the web, it is a file local to your system and cannot be accessed by anyone outside that local system.

      Would you consider "about:config" to be part of "the web" because it is accessed via a Firefox web browser?

      In that case, it's media served over the Internet from a hyperlink,

      No, its location is identified by a URL, but it is still served from an FTP server. It isn't served by "a hyperlink".

  10. BEcause it excludes facebook from the web by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    walled gardgens cannot be part of the beb by this definition.

    It's a good definition precisely for that reason. These unlinkable pages break the web

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  11. The devil is in the details. by xevioso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1) Define "linkable".
    2) Define "client".

    Do so in a way that is unambiguous, but also is unlikely to change over time. Good luck.

  12. Defined by standards? by Hentes · · Score: 1

    Now that HTML5 is finally finished, what the web is is defined very clearly by the W3C standards. Sure, you can replace those with your own proprietary tech, but then don't call it 'web'.

  13. Analytics is killing the web by xanthos · · Score: 1

    My friend Ghostery tells me this page has 31 different trackers loaded on it. 31 pieces of useless information to be sold by one group of con/ad men to another. And it is the dependence on selling demographic information and the insta-bidding of ad space that keeps clogging the tubes and prompts well meaning but deluded engineers to create solutions like AMP.

    Give me back Web 1.0 and HTML 1.1 where content where you were judged on your content, not how well your page looks on a phone.

    --
    Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
  14. but what about... by doom · · Score: 1

    (3) And must include 300k of Javascript libraries.

  15. FYI by ckatko · · Score: 1

    Google Apps are being discontinued except for Chrome OS.

    https://www.theverge.com/2016/...

    Not only that, they're slated for second-half of 2017... so like in a couple of months. Goodbye Netflix app. I hope they've resolved the "no 1080p/4K in Chrome except in the app" issue.

  16. ZOMG, there are different protocols on the net! by istartedi · · Score: 1

    I'm given to understand that there are even ports other than 80 and 443. Gasp! You could even write a client that does something crazy, like use port 110 for a dedicated email client. Heresy!

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?