Websites are dying...
- The number of active websites per year has been stagnant for a decade
- The % of all websites that are active has been declining since 2008
Internet traffic and attention distribution are shifting from domains to "accounts" and "profiles"; digital identities in a way.
We've seen implications of this already with LLMs and "Generative Engine Optimization" focusing their attention on forums and places like Reddit, trying to infiltrate where people go for organic information to spread biased narratives.
This shift is impacting everything from advertisements, shopping, and 1000x other things.
What really scares me about this is we do not actually "own" our accounts and profiles like we do with domains.
TikTok, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, etc. are the ones who own your account and own your profile.
They're the ones who:
- grant you permission to participate in the network
- grant you permission to post
- grant you permission to monetize
- control what you see via opaque algorithms
- create the incentives and rules of the game we all play by
By shifting control from owned domains to rented accounts, we're risking the right to claim our digital selves while giving more power to a handful of companies.
I really don’t think it has to be this way though...
We can figure out ways to use standard web protocols (HTTP) and emerging social protocols (Nostr) to broadcast/consume social content on our own terms but still in a familiar way. All we've been missing was really good curation + social habits (one of the reasons why RSS feeds died)
If we can create customizable algorithms on top of the internet itself - tunable "For You" feeds - we wouldn’t NEED an account in the first place. The web would be interoperable and social.
Your website is your account. Your domain is your identity. You control what you see. You control what you post. All on your own terms.
Incentives are tricky (who pays for what?) but definitely solvable
