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                             Why the web went bad

> My recent post about "why gopher needs crypto" received a very well-
> considered response over at The Boston Diaries. The author (do I call you
> "the conman"?) …
>
> …
>
> The conman suggests that creating a new protocol is to risk that we "start
> falling into HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) territory". This is of
> course a very real risk, but I also very strongly believe that it is
> perfectly avoidable if we are sufficiently determined from day one to avoid
> it. To this end, I hope to think and write (and read, if anybody wants to
> join in!) more in the future not just about the shortcomings of gopher but
> very explicitly about what is right and what is wrong about HTTP and HTML
> (HyperText Markup Language). It's vitally important to identify precisely
> what features of the web stack facilitated the current state of affairs if
> we want to avoid the same thing happening again.
>

“More on gopher and crypto [1]”

In my opinion, the point where HTTP and HTML “went off the rails” into the
current trainwreck of the modern web happened when browsers gained the
ability to run code within the browser, turning the browser from a content
delivery platform and into an application delivery platform (althought that
transformation didn't happen overnight). And no, it wasn't the fault of
Netscape [2] and their introduction of Javascript [3] that brought about the
current apocalypse of bloated webpages and constant surveillance. Nope, the
fault lies directly at the feet of Sun Microsystems [4] (whose zombie corpse
is following the command of Oracle [5] but I digress) and the introduction of
Java in early 1996 [6]. Javascript was Netscape's reaction to Java.

But while the blame definitely lies with Sun, that's not to say it wouldn't
have happened. If Sun didn't do it, it would have most certainly been
Microsoft, or even possibly Netscape (my money would have been on Microsoft
though—they had already added support to run VisualBasic in their office
suite and adding such to the browser would have been a natural progression
for them). I think that whatever protocol was popular at the time, HTTP or
Gopher, would have turned from a content delivery platform to an application
delivery platform because that's the way the industry was headed (it's just
that HTTP won out because of embedded cat pictures but again I digress).

In fact, the very nature of wanting to “improve Gopher” is what drove HTTP
into its current incarnation in the first place and one must fight hard
against the second system effect [7].

[1] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/more-on-gopher-%20and-crypto.txt
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems
[5] https://www.oracle.com/sun/
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(software_platform)#History
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-

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