The HTML Hobbyist (2022)

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall reaction & nostalgia

  • Many commenters report a strong nostalgic hit from the site’s aesthetics: flat maps, badges, marquees, grey backgrounds, GIF‑like animation.
  • The project is praised as “freeing,” like an art project you build for its own sake, abandon if you like, and don’t try to monetize.
  • People reminisce about late‑90s/early‑2000s web culture: Flash sites, Neopets, weird personal pages, and how that era inspired some careers.

Desire for a “small web” & existing ecosystems

  • Several point to existing indie/small‑web communities and indexes: Neocities, 512kb.club, indieweb resources, Gemini protocol, Wiby, Marginalia, webrings.
  • Some want a “Web Classic Mode”: a browser or search engine that only surfaces sites opting into a simple‑web standard (e.g., special header).
  • Webrings and curated blogrolls are seen as a low‑tech solution for discovery and “classic web” feeling.

Modern web vs classic HTML

  • One camp argues informational sites can be beautiful without JavaScript, and that JS‑heavy SPAs waste resources, harm accessibility, exclude older devices/slow networks, and externalize environmental and user costs.
  • Another camp says modern users expect interactivity and polish; for business and marketing pages, JS frameworks and heavy visual design are often seen as necessary.
  • There’s debate over whether “no appealing website without JS” is true; examples like Wikipedia and Craigslist are cited against that claim.
  • Some emphasize that the real issue is authors’ goals and audiences, not a single “proper” way the web “was supposed to be used.”

Nostalgia vs real problems

  • Some say the longing for “old web” is mostly nostalgia for a pre‑“eternal September” user base; others counter that concerns about bloat, monoculture, and ad‑driven design are concrete, not just feelings.
  • There’s disagreement over whether it’s fair to criticize other people’s design choices versus “just build your own oasis,” especially when critical services (e.g., government, banking) require JS.

Discoverability and the attention economy

  • Commenters distinguish two issues: (1) simple/quirky aesthetics and (2) non‑algorithmic discoverability.
  • It’s widely felt that “if you build it, they will come” no longer holds; small personal sites now get little traffic unless you churn content or play algorithm/SEO games.
  • Some still write blogs or tiny tools “for themselves,” valuing the personal archive even with tiny audiences.

Tools, creation, and accessibility

  • Several people still hand‑code HTML/CSS/JS or inline Svelte/HTMX pages, enjoying the simplicity.
  • Others lament the loss of good WYSIWYG HTML editors (Composer, Nvu, Dreamweaver‑style tools) that let non‑programmers publish static sites.
  • There’s back‑and‑forth over whether WYSIWYG tools are empowering or “skill‑nerfing,” and whether requiring code literacy effectively excludes many potential hobbyists.

Diversity within the “small web”

  • One commenter notes a split between:
    • “Document network” purists who want strict, minimal HTML.
    • Maximalist/expressive creators who enjoy wild styling and interaction.
  • Some worry that strict anti‑CSS/JS pledges could alienate creative, playful sites that don’t fit the doctrinaire “proper HTML only” mold.
  • Others point out that niche/weird communities can skew socially unusual, making them less appealing to people seeking more “normal” spaces.