Journal Entry 9/2

"A Handmade Web"

J. R. Carpenter

This was a nice read that sums up a lot of the ideas and themes we have been talking about in class discussion. Many of these ideas surrounding handmade websites have popped up in my head from time to time, but I have never spent this much time connecting the dots on why certain websites have such a different quality to them, or how obvious it is when Squarespace (or Squarespace's influence) is woven into the fabric of a website. I also find it kismet how many of the links in this reading lead to websites that currently are not working or down for maintenance.

One part that really struck me was when Carpenter described how design aesthetics of websites become so quickly outdated, that they compound upon themselves as the web moves forwards. And how our “frames” for viewing websites rapidly evolve, sometimes causing rifts between hardware/software, or changes in appearance and functionality. I think this side effect of exponential growth is often not considered enough.

Sometimes I am truthfully bewildered at tech companies and the ways that they operate. I think a lot about how the internet has capitalized on so much of our time and data, and how the handful of companies that run most web watering holes are ruthlessly interested in constant exponential growth. I mourn the day that google photos stopped offering free unlimited storage. I shudder to think about how much content and information is floating around in servers that could one day break (or, more likely, stop being payed for.) Just yesterday I got an email that my entire OneDrive account is about to be deleted because I haven't opened it in two years. What the fuck? The state of the internet sometimes feels so at odds with the life I am trying to cultivate as a human being. I don't know, these are a lot of unformed angsty thoughts I have about the web.