For us "old" people who remember the internet before the web -- one of the things that's really different about the modern internet is the very limited set of protocols and applications that the average user interacts with. It really used to be that every different service type mapped to a different protocol and HTTP (and HTTPS) has just sort of subsumed everything. Back in the old days to minimally use the internet you'd have to know at least telnet, ftp, nntp, gopher (maybe), smtp, pop and maybe a handful of others.
(okay, maybe modern users use more protocols than I'm admitting to, but it's very obscured these days but so many different applications just ride on HTTP(S) anyways).
There's really nothing preventing some motivated group to just spin up an entirely new kind of service that "fixes" all that's wrong with the web, custom protocol and application stack.
"But the network effect!"
And that's something us old timers remember, we remember lots of great services spinning up and down and even when the web was just a handful of sites. The web earned its network by having better general utility than other things that were attempted, but why can't a new better service eventually earn it?
(In the meanwhile us hacker types will enjoy having a cool new playground to muck around on for a few years).
> There's really nothing preventing some motivated group to just spin up an entirely new kind of service that "fixes" all that's wrong with the web, custom protocol and application stack.
Firewalls and security policy. The internet is a much less trusting place these days[1] and anything too new will have adoption issues once it gets out of a core hacker group.
1. Remember IRIX shopping with telnet and a guest/guest login enabled by default to “foster the spirit of collaboration”?
(okay, maybe modern users use more protocols than I'm admitting to, but it's very obscured these days but so many different applications just ride on HTTP(S) anyways).
There's really nothing preventing some motivated group to just spin up an entirely new kind of service that "fixes" all that's wrong with the web, custom protocol and application stack.
"But the network effect!"
And that's something us old timers remember, we remember lots of great services spinning up and down and even when the web was just a handful of sites. The web earned its network by having better general utility than other things that were attempted, but why can't a new better service eventually earn it?
(In the meanwhile us hacker types will enjoy having a cool new playground to muck around on for a few years).