Bi-Polar Thoughts on the WWW
The web is simple, quick and easy. Three letters equals one tidy package.
The independent web is clumsy, hard to swallow and difficult to explain. More than a word, but less than a sentence.
Talk to people about the web and they'll likely pick up what you're saying. They'll spot their ESPN.com, Yahoo! and Hotmail and give you a knowing nod.
Talk to people about the independent web and they'll give you a stare, wondering whether to take you seriously or show you the door.
The web makes sense, as it's just a bunch of the same offline companies gone online. Oh sure, there's a few online-only companies left, but they're still companies. They're not that strange really, they still take credit cards and you get what you pay for.
The independent web makes little sense, as it's a bunch of people who are tinkering in their workshops making things, who often don't sell anything and certainly aren't corporate-sponsored.
The web has seen the great boom and the great demise of the dot-com era, but that made sense, too -- everyone knows you can't run a business when you give everything away for free. Sooner or later, those businesses had to go out of business.
The independent web has been there through the high times and low times, neither of which had much of an effect on the size or shape of it. No one can figure out why some do well and others do not. It has nothing to do with the law of business, as they are rarely selling anything. It has nothing to do with profitability, as they rarely are envisioned as anything but money and time sinks.
In the future, the web will follow the same Darwinian rules of business as the offline world. Companies which offer a product or service that people want at a price that people want to pay will survive, and those that give things away for free, or fail to deliver what they promise, will go belly up.
In the future, the independent web will continue to grow in size and range, filling with all sorts of unexplainable phenomena as well as useful and entertaining destinations. But they will come and go according to dynamics that we cannot explain. Many will survive as they continue to spend money and make none. Some will disappear because they earn too many fans. A few will even pass away because people want to pay for what they can't provide.
My hope for the web is that it continues to offer the raw data for me to search and refine in any way I see fit, with the realities of business leading some to charge me a fee for access and others charging a premium to do the work for me.
My hope for the independent web is that it is no longer confused with the web. There's no explaining why someone does something for free, in their spare time. There's no reason why people create the projects and sites they do. But there's equally no explaining why you and I are drawn to just those things.
To support the growth of the web, just see it as another TV channel, newspaper or shopping mall. See the ads just as you would the ones in the magazine or on the side of the highway. Shop for the right product at the right price just like you would at the strip mall. And if we're all lucky, we'll be able to buy, read, watch and listen to a wide-range of products and services which they can't quite duplicate offline. That's when we'll know the web has really come into its own.
To support the growth of the independent web, just continue to see it as another medium of self-expression. Don't look for the price tag or expect to talk to customer service. Forget about refund policies and 2-for-1 offers. Instead, notice the people behind the projects you see, notice what they are doing, wonder just why they are doing it, and take the time to say thank you. That's when the people who make up the independent web will know they've really come into their own.
