Same feeling here
Heavy Kagi user and the idea behind small web was appealing; but how its implemented don't click with me
Their rules excludes an absolute gem like https://www.sheldonbrown.com/ which is, to me, the essence of what we could call the "small web".
Each times the topic pops up, I try a few random ones and never found anything interesting.
Expert/auteur websites like Sheldon Brown's (or, one of my favorites, Ask Aaron https://runamok.tech/AskAaron/FAQ.html) are the pinnacle of what's possible with the small web. Today this kind of info ends up in an ad-ridden hosted wiki or locked away in an unsearchable discord.
There's also novelties like https://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/, this probably hasn't been updated in a decade but that makes it no less interesting.
Then there's exceptionally cool demos like https://thelongestyard.link/q3a-demo/. This sort of thing just doesn't fit in a "blog" format unless you're writing a blog about how you built it and linking out to it.
If anyone knows of a directory of sites like these (preferably with a shuffle option) I'd love to hear about it (and contribute)!
Sheldon Brown's content is great, but is it ironic that the first thing you see on his site is a Google banner ad?
Understandably, he'd like to earn money on his content and I see no problem with that. But for me to visit his site and have Google add yet another tracking event to their "interest pile" about me (I guess i'm in the market for bikes now?) is a bit off putting.
He can't be making more than a few bucks a month through that single ad, right?
I truly had no idea, I guess I've always had an ad blocker.
He's been dead since 2008, so I assume the banner ad keeps the lights on in the absence of his income and input.
He died about ten years ago.
> are the pinnacle of what's possible with the small web
if this is the pinnacle then I want nothing to do with it.
This website is the small web - self contained. It's a really good example of the Internet we had and apparently some still want. I think of it like computer graphics where you're definition of space can get bigger as you add a bunch of resources each with their own model space into the relative context of world space. The small web should define how we do that and discover things, not what or how we build within each specific model space.
Well, thanks. That small web just taught me in a very concise way a thing or two about bicicle braking technique!