Netscape used to come with a browser, a mail client, a newsreader, an HTML editor.
We've moved beyond that now, why worry about a browser being able to read Gopherspace or Gemini pages? Putting those into dedicated browsers of their own has been the perceived action for some time.
The reason is to connect them together in one experiential flow. That was the purpose of hypermedia, the interconnection of platforms and data sources.
People aren't doing that, I realize it, but maybe we should fix that instead of abandon the dream.
I’m not against it but I’ve browsed the web and the internet I guess on a NeXT and not seen that. I’ve seen far too many shitty user experiences. The best thing for anything on the net that’s not the web is to write a proxy and host it very prominently and encourage browsers to use it or make a simple extension to use it.
2023 me doesn’t want to install a client for WAIS or Gemini but I would do it if it made sense.
TBL's browser on the NeXT isn't a great reference point here.
Think more of hypercard and go back and visit the computer Chronicles episodes on YouTube for a refresh if you want
The difference between the two is TBL's WWW was good for browsing citation based research data that's spread across a network of global institutions while hypercard was more about information organization and presentation.
The distinction is subtle in theory but in practice it manifests as inherently different patterns.
For instance, the fidelity of a WWW link is coarse. It could be richer, but it's not. I'm familiar with the W3C semantics group btw and I've read their literature.
The modern web is neither of these systems but it's also something I believe most people would agree is lacking.
Perpetuating the suboptimal anarchy of the present by reinforcing it isn't going to help. More agency needs to be exercised.
All of those things center around the same set of technologies. Browsers today even come bundled with developer tools which still include HTML editors. But it's better for there to be two separate applications that both use separate copies of the same rendering engines and UI chrome? We might as well just make everything in Electron
Also, it's not like browsers are any less complicated now. They support things like 3D rendering and even MIDI device interfacing which are arguably more complicated for less benefit than supporting alternate protocols and technologies
