I like the #smallweb the way it is. Quiet, a little rough around the edges, not trying to sell me anything every five seconds. It reminds me of how the internet used to feel before everything got optimized and polished into the same shape.
That said, there are a few things it could use without losing that spirit.
First, better ways to read. Not fancier, just smoother. If I’m following a handful of gemlogs, a couple Mastodon folks, maybe a Lemmy thread here and there, I shouldn’t have to juggle three different apps and a dozen tabs. Give me something simple that pulls it all together and lets me just sit and read. No ads, no tracking, no friction.
Second, a little more durability. Too many good sites just disappear. I get it, people move on, but it would be nice if there were easier ways to mirror or archive things so the good writing doesn’t vanish overnight. The small web has a memory problem.
Third, discovery that doesn’t feel like an algorithm breathing down your neck. I don’t want “recommended for you.” I want “here’s what someone else thought was interesting.” Old-school blogrolls, human-curated lists, maybe even random links that actually surprise you. Let people point to things they care about, not what performs well.
And maybe this is just me, but a bit more cross-connection wouldn’t hurt. Gemini, Gopher, the web, the #fediverse all feel like neighboring towns that don’t always have good roads between them. You can get there, but it takes effort. Smoother bridges would go a long way.
None of this needs to be big or complicated. In fact, it shouldn’t be. The whole point is to keep things human-scale. But a few small improvements could make it easier to stick around, read more, and maybe even contribute something back without feeling like you need to build a whole platform just to say your piece.
That’s really all I want out of it. A place that’s simple, a little more connected, and worth coming back to at the end of the day.
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Points one and three people are working on.
For the first, any app is a new way to view the Fediverse. Its going to be different for each app. The Threadiverse interprets AP differently vs other Fediverse apps. People are working on this.
As for point three, people are working on this as well. Evan Prodromou announced tags.pub recently. And folks are working on fedidiscovery https://www.fediscovery.org/
As for point two, this happens with regular internet as well. Remember CompuServe? AOL? That random email provider you had? We need to find a path to sustainability and then stability comes with it. Many people are trying different ways. Coops, sponsors, I’ve started a public charity.
You have to remember, you might be seeing this as a competitor to Reddit or Twitter or YouTube. It’s none of those. This is wholly different. A new evolution of the Internet, but as powerful as internet 1.0.
We’re just early. The VAST majority of folks have no clue we exist. But they will.
Best suggestion, find a way to join a project you love and contribute some way. Donate, help with code, help with docs, help show others how to use it, etc. Just being here also helps. People want communities. That’s what we’re building, but we don’t have Google money. It’s going to be a slow burn, but if you don’t give up, I know I won’t, then it can hero evolving until we hit a spark that lights the fire.
Edit: Typos and clarity
And to answer your question directly, no you’re not asking too much. But it’s also not as easy as you think. :-)
nothing to add here except that was an excellent response!
sounds like you just need an RSS reader
i am big into the oldschool shit. my first browser was lynx
one of the reasons i chose to use an mbin instance is so i could access the threadiverse and the twitterverse at the same time. I can bookmark comments/posts and its pretty easy to check the peeps i follow if i miss their stuff in the server feed which is entirely temporal and can be limited to subscribed content.
fucks apps though. i use firefox on mobile/desktop and that seems to work for me. https://moist.catsweat.com/
On the first - isn’t most of fediverse pretty down with RSS feeds? So your RSS feed reader would be a wonderful way to follow what you want to.
For simple read-only: one could set up Calibre to pull RSS feeds or other resources and convert to ebooks. Sync to ereader and enjoy. Delete after reading or archive at will.
interesting idea… i think i might try this just because i would have never thought about it!
Marginalia search has a good explore button for random sites! I have thought about starting a Stumbleupon like tool, but I haven’t got around to it yet.
Stumbleupon was good, partially, because people submitted sites. That requires accounts and moderation though, and getting a community together is difficult.
So it isn’t exactly the same as what I was planning, but there used to be a BannerLink maintained by WSMZ (https://hbaguette.neocities.org/) that isn’t maintained anymore.
I have started maintaining that here: https://j4yc33.neocities.org/stuff/BannerAds
If you have a small website and want to explore more, there are about 17 sites on it right now, and hopefully I will be able to add more.
As time goes on, I might be able to use this database of self-submitted websites to create a sort of small web stumbleupon.
On the first point, one of the reasons I use and would suggest either Mbin or Friendica. Both are hybrid, meant to bring together microblogging and threads, like Mastodon and Lemmy, and by extension, a bigger chunk of the fediverse.
On the second point, if you want to keep things floating around, maybe cross-post them to a personal community in a separated instance. The line between preservation and redundancy is often non-existant. Other than that, there are some things you could do like commenting or boosting derelict posts from dead instances, to help keeping them floating.
On the third point, I suppose Lemmy can be a bit laborious to find new stuff, so specially for it, I’d suggest places like !communitypromo@lemmy.ca and !trendingcommunities@lemmy.cafe, though maybe those would defeat the purpose. Alternatively, and bringing Mbin and Friendica a third time, they have boost features, so if someone you follow boosts posts, they get included in your feed (note: boosts in the feed are opt-in on Mbin).
On the fourth point, on the threadiverse side of things, Lemmy can be a bit isolated indeed. With microblogging and by extension (ahem) hybrid thread/microblogging platforms, there are more options, like trending tags bots, RSS Parrot, Bridgy Fed, and easier connection to less standard places using ActivityPub. RSS Parrot in special I’m finding pretty useful. Most stuff I follow is in places with RSS, so I can add them to the bot to have in my feed.
And back on point 1, whatever I can use on browsers, I do. If I don’t get a function natively, I make Ublock Origin filters and Violentmonkey scripts. If I can’t figure out, I ask LLMs to generate something that works for me. If I need to open links to other instances because of e.g. RSS, I have an userscript I keep increasing that redirects the links to my instance’s search page, since searches are hardcoded in the link.
I think there are a few aggregators on there. But i use the glanceapp for a dashboard feel for everything i do. I like the front page feel
https://github.com/glanceapp/glance
As far as discovery. Any algorithm helps you find stuff you like. You can always hit random for something different.
Anyone know of a gemlog to RSS tool? Then that could be fed into a RSS to fedi bot.
