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Ask HN: Do other languages suffer from the modern web disease?

by tionate on 11/18/22, 7:18 AM with 3 comments

Everyone here is familiar with the poor experience we are faced with on the modern web, e.g. the recipe sites where the actual recipe is always preceded by the entire history of man, or search results consisting of copy pasted generic content appearing on a multitude of sites, or the sites flooded by fake reviews, all with the customary multitude of pop ups and noise.

However, I find if I search in Japanese, there is a lot more of the traditional small web, written by real people motivated by (possibly) nothing more than the desire to share and interact, rather than optimise some kind of metric. There could be many explanations, but regardless, Japan has always had a unique Galapagos culture so may not generalise.

For those who interact with the web in different languages, how do you find the experience compared to the current English experience?

  • by ogarten on 11/18/22, 2:24 PM

    Awesome question! Thanks for answering that for Japanese.

    My experience is German and it's the same as in English. Boilerplate bullshit is everywhere.

    I am too young to remember the real small web but in the early to mid-2000s the web was a great resource for tech/nerds. The easier got to participate, the worse it's got. I still think traditional bullet-in boards were a great concept. Unfortunately, most were quite toxic as well, but that's more an issue of moderation than the board itself.

  • by _448 on 11/18/22, 11:56 AM

    It is bad the same as in the English language. My experience is with the Marathi language. There is so much junk that it feels like I am searching for a needle in a haystack.

  • by amykhar on 11/18/22, 10:28 AM

    What a great question. Now, I wish I could read Japanese.