The “small web” is bigger than you might think

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Enthusiasm for a “small web” built around personal, noncommercial sites is colliding with practical questions about how to find and sustain it. Commenters contrast nostalgia-driven projects like Gemini and other alt-protocols with simpler approaches such as lightweight HTML, RSS, and curated directories or search engines (e.g., Kagi Small Web, Marginalia) that try to surface independent blogs buried by Google. Many see value in experimentation with protocols and strict minimalism, but others argue that improving discovery, reducing tracking, and enabling sustainable (but non-exploitative) monetization on the existing web stack may do more to keep the independent web alive.

Small Web as Mindset and Reaction to the Modern Web

  • Many frame the “small web” less as size and more as mindset: personal publishing, low commercial pressure, non-enshittified experiences.
  • It’s seen as an alternative to short-form, ad-saturated, engagement-optimized platforms.
  • Some argue nostalgia plays a role, but the core motivation is escaping commercialization and tracking.
  • Others don’t want a separate “small web” at all, preferring to stay on the main web and hope it improves.

Gemini, SmolNet, and Alternative Protocols

  • Gemini is praised for simplicity, privacy, and text focus, but criticized as too restrictive (no inline images, limited formatting, anti-extension culture).
  • Some see it as missing what made the 90s web exciting: rich experimentation with the medium, not just minimalism.
  • SmolNet protocols (Gemini, Gopher, etc.) are noted as fragmentary; new incompatible protocols appear whenever someone wants a tweak.
  • There is interest in “Markdown-web” or HTTP-without-JS/cookies as a more practical alternative.

Discovery, Search, and Curation

  • A recurring theme: small sites exist but are buried by mainstream search, especially Google’s popularity- and commerce-oriented ranking.
  • Marginalia-search is highlighted as an independent, non-monetized engine that surfaces personal, non-slop content; relevance varies by query but is improving.
  • Kagi Small Web and similar curated lists (indieblog.page, RSS-based aggregators, 1mb/512kb clubs, blogrolls) are used as discovery tools.
  • Shell snippets and browser commands to open random small sites show a DIY, tooling-oriented culture.

Scale, Criteria, and Long Tail

  • Hand-curated lists work for 10–50 sites (daily reading) or ~30k sites (Kagi), but miss much of the long tail.
  • Criteria like “must be a blog,” “recent posts,” English-only, no Substack, and requiring RSS or GitHub PRs exclude many worthy sites.
  • Some value rarely updated but high-quality blogs; others want active feeds. Recency bias is seen as harmful for some use cases.

Monetization and Sustainability

  • Strong anti-monetization sentiment coexists with arguments for ethical, small-scale business models (subscriptions, non-intrusive ads).
  • Some warn that equating “good” with “unpaid” pushes power toward large corporations that can afford to operate at a loss.
  • There’s interest in indie-friendly, non-exploitative monetization patterns cataloged by the IndieWeb community.

Technology Boundaries: JS, Tracking, Encryption

  • Opinions differ on what “small” should technically mean:
    • Some blame client-side dynamism (XHR/fetch), cookies, third-party requests, and tracking more than JS/CSS themselves.
    • Others want stricter constraints (no JS, no cookies, or even no TLS) to constrain commercialization and simplify hosting.
  • A minority argue the small web should avoid encryption entirely to discourage commerce and simplify tiny servers, suggesting content-level signatures instead; critics counter that network tampering, tracking, and state surveillance make encryption effectively necessary.
  • “No-tracking” declarations and first-party-only cookies are proposed as a middle path for privacy without new protocols.

Culture, Aesthetics, and Community

  • Old web aesthetics like 88x31 buttons, webrings, “under construction” pages, and personal blogrolls are affectionately revived.
  • RSS is repeatedly cited as a solved solution for “too many sites,” but many newer sites lack feeds.
  • Some see Gemini/Fediverse/small protocols as niche “shell script slab city” mostly for techies; others like precisely that cozy, slower, more intentional culture.