Why I Hate Working on the World Wide Web

A rant against commercialisation. Or: Why you should never let your hobby become your job.

I'm a Web developer. I build commercial Web sites. Or at least I did. I don't do that anymore. I'm sick of working on the Web.

I discovered the World Wide Web about eight years ago. I was fascinated by it. I love information. I love creating it, manipulating it, and passing it on. The concept of swapping information between computers all over the world, and the idea of linking different people's documents into one gigantic Web of information, entranced me.

So I learned HTML, the language of the Web. I learned it as a hobby. This may sound naive, but at the time I had no idea that it would become a marketable skill or that I could make money writing Web pages for other people. I learned it because it was fun, and I wrote my Web pages, and I played with information and Webs and pathways and patterns, and it was all neat and interesting and exciting.

Where did the information go?

Does anybody remember the Information Superhighway? Back when the Web was young, this was the name we gave to the Internet. You don't hear it much any more. A new set of jargon has taken over. Back then, we referred to the Information Age. Now, we are in the age of the E.

E-commerce. E-banking. E-publishing. E-books. E-finance. And the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned E-tailer. (E-tailer? E-tailer??? I'm get really e-noyed with the e-radication of proper E-nglish.)

The World Wide Web will surely stand as one of our culture's greatest inventions. Nothing else in history has done so much to facilitate the sharing of information. That's why we called it the Information Superhighway. It was a good analogy. The Internet was a huge, fast highway—actually a network of highways—linking information centres around the world. A piece of information drove up an on-ramp, onto the highway, and presto! It arrived at your door. The biggest, fastest, smartest, most convenient library ever conceived.

Note that I'm using the past tense. So what went wrong? The information went away.

Oh, it's still there. But it's buried. It's buried under a layer of commercialisation. It's buried under a morass of bandwidth-guzzling E-tailers (gag) and dot coms, all desperate to tempt you to their sites, to spend money, and justify their existence.

E-commerce doesn't work—but that doesn't stop them

(The "E" stands for "empty".)

On-line traders haemorrhage money. Nobody makes a profit (except for the pornographers, but that's another rant). Amazon is the archetypal on-line retailer. It was the first and it is probably the biggest. Its turnover grows and grows. And its losses grow and grow. Amazon loses money so fast, you wonder how (and why) they continue.

It's this "E" thing. It's a magic letter. "E" turns otherwise sane venture capitalists and businessmen into . . . into . . . well, I don't know what; whatever it is, it seems to have an IQ lower than Amazon's profit margin. And that's low.

Like it or not, the on-line businesses are here to stay. If a business doesn't get on line, then apparently it's going to fail. You have to keep up with your competitors. Get on line or get out, that's the message that industry analysts are promoting. I'm not sure how they arrive at this conclusion, when real-world evidence shows us e-businesses failing left, right, and centre. But nevertheless. We are told that all businesses must be on line to be competitive.

And that (theoretically) adds up to good news for Web developers. Because these business all need Web sites.

The rise of the corporate Web site

What do these Web sites have in common?

www.w3.org
www.literature.org
www.stc.org

How about these?

www.lastminute.com
www.amazon.com
www.playboy.com

There is a naming convention for Web sites, where the last three letters (after the dot) describe the type of organisation which owns the site. A dot com is a commercial site. A dot org is a non-profit organisation.

So what's the difference between the six sites I listed? The first three (dot orgs) provide information. Good, clear, useful, accessible information. Exactly what you would expect from the world's biggest, fastest, smartest, most convenient library. The other three sites (dot coms) try to sell you something. In slow, creaky, annoying ways.

Once upon a time, most Web sites were dot orgs. But now? Well, think about that last dozen Web sites you visited. How many were dot orgs? How many dot orgs have you ever visited?

I think I can safely guess that most of you mostly visit dot com sites. And what is the sole reason for the existence of a dot com site? To make a profit. To take your money. To sell you something. Either directly (by on-line trading) or indirectly (by advertising their off-line wares).

Forget the quality—get their money

Now we come to the real reason why I hated being a commercial Web developer.

A company doesn't care how bad its Web site is. All it cares is whether you'll get your credit card out while you're there.

I have spent literally years learning how to craft a good Web site. I don't mean the technical details of HTML. Anybody can do HTML. Any kid not yet out of school can code HTML with his eyes closed while playing Tomb Raider with his left hand. The technical stuff is easy. But there are a whole lot of intangibles that go into good Web site design.

I've learned information architecture, hypertext theory, audience analysis, interface design, indexing theory (how many corporate Web site managers even know what I'm talking about in this sentence?); I've learned how to write (how many corporate Web sites feature professional-quality writing?), edit (the Web is riddled with typographical errors because nobody cares); I understand page layout, colour, typefaces, (I don't mean how to slap six unreadable fonts on a page and layer them over a psychedelic background photograph). In short, I know how to develop and deliver good-quality, useful, useable information.

I'm not writing this to tell you how good I am. I'm writing it to tell you how bad most corporate Web sites are.

A commercial Web site has two main flaws.

First, it's not bothered about providing a quality user experience. It's aiming for just enough quality. A design just good enough to let you to find, and buy, the product. That's all. Anything more is unnecessary expense.

Second, a commercial Web site is designed to attract your attention. And it does this by loud colours, enormous pictures, flashing bits, pop-up windows, animated pages, and general hyperbole.

By the time it gets your attention, you're so shell-shocked and battered by images and sound-bites that you feel like you just . . . well, watched a commercial. Guess what? You just have.

And so . . .

That's it. I'm out of commercial Web design. If I wanted to work in advertising, I'd work in advertising.

I want to write. I want to provide information. I like information. It's useful. It's interesting. And it doesn't flash at you.

From now on, I'll do Web sites on my own time.

And they'll be good.

And informative.

Thanks for listening.

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© 2000 by David Meadows. All rights reserved.
13 December 2000