The internet is a tumultuous storm of new and emerging ideas mixing with ones that are decades old. It’s difficult navigate, as there are just too many websites to comb through. It’s just too difficult to grasp.
The internet is intangible.
As a technology, the internet exists not as a substantial tool that people can use. Rather, it’s uses are limited to the functionality of the browser we use to access it. Our interaction with the internet is done, by definition, though several layers of abstraction. We are prohibited from experiencing anything truly meaningful, and like the prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” we attribute the shadows passing in front of us to real experiences.
The most popular websites are those that made these shadows feel the realest.
I propose that the most successful web companies aren’t truly web companies at all. Real success is found in affecting someone’s actual existence. The greater the influence in someone’s life, the more popular that website will become.
Examples of this mental framework are easy to find, just look at the top web companies right now. Facebook, for example, is a real way to connect with people. The connections and interactions are all real-life, meaningful effects encouraged by the site. Amazon rewards its users by giving them exactly what they want and ordered, placing physical objects at the user’s door that they will keep and interact with outside of the online space. Google began as a way to organize the mess the internet was in, allowing the users relief as they first stepped out into the web. It’s additional projects like Google Maps allows people to physically travel from place to place with ease. Google Home bringing an object into the home to help with day-to-day questions and tasks, and the Google productivity software suite, used primarily to help collaborate on project with other people through simultaneous editing.
Further examples can be seen with the Silicon Valley favorites. Airbnb is marketed as a way to have real experiences with locals from the community that you’re visiting and having a comfortable place to sleep for a few nights. Uber and Lyft are there to make your life easier, by giving relatively cheap rides from place to place around the city. Twitter allows us to connect directly to celebrities and gives us a podium from which we can shout our thoughts.
What else?
MoviePass makes buying movie tickets easier, Slack allows us to communicate with one another quicker, Instagram gives us insight into our friends lives and can encourage us to go out and take pictures worth posting. We can exchange money using Venmo, PayPal, the Cash app, Facebook, Apple pay, Google pay, and Bitcoin. Snapchat lets us send pictures to one another. Medium lets us read interesting stories from interesting people. Pornographic websites serve as a portal through which we can see our most secret fantasies being played out, and every popular online technology is vying to be a meaningful part of your life.
Recently on the news is came out that Netflix had surpassed Disney in terms of value for an entertainment company. Netflix accomplished this by being more tangible asset to the public. It is a real platform with content and characters that people love and can revisit with ease. Its shows give people things to talk about with one another, and its content can make those who are lonely maybe feel a bit more comfortable for a while. Its value isn’t necessarily the quality of the content, but the context in which it can be used.
What online entertainment platforms really offer is emotional value.
On a webpage like YouTube or Twitch, new characters and stories are being created all the time. The popular creators offer fans a feeling of being close to a celebrity. Following the daily actions and joining a community gives some a feeling on belonging that they may not find at school or work. Other creators making content for education, music, comedy, etc. all try to have the user feel like they might have benefitted from watching so that they might want to watch more.
And yet…
For all the content available online, the internet still leaves me feeling kind of empty.
In a place where nothing has any intrinsic value, where content can be copied and distributed with two clicks, what real hope is there to develop something really meaningful? Despite efforts to the contrary, the internet remains a shadow on a wall, a flicker of the real thing. It’s a window to a place where nothing really matters. Furthermore, the internet can wear at your spirit: many studies showing that internet addiction is linked to depression, and anxiety.
I think everyone realizes that by posting things on online - they’re screaming into the void. People worry deep down that their thoughts are dust, and that the internet is an incredible windy place. The websites I mentioned use this wind to generate value in your real life. Websites which use the internet as the end, rather than a means to an end, will ultimately fail, as the users will feel unsatisfied.
So how can we fix this?
Well I think we already are. The problem is that we’re quickly running up against limitations that the internet has. With how easy it is to simply close a window and do something else, it’s hard to really sink your teeth into something. I think the focus of web development should center around the individual. I think that new ideas need to come from a place where we consider what real world effect we want to have, first.
Rob Spiegel from the E-Commerce Times wrote in 1999 about the mass adoption of the internet, and the hopes he had for the technology. He writes that his children talked to their friends about the internet, and that rather than being a dark and isolating experience, that it might be used as a tool for good. His children found the internet to be a talking point in their real lives. As web developers, we have an obligation to use these tools to promote positive change in the lives of our users.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/30/health/americans-screen-time-nielsen/index.html https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/internet-addiction-linked-to-depression-anxiety-study/article9124660.ece https://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/1731.html