Re:What if hyperlinks went away? (Score 1)

I think that if you kill hyperlinks, you pretty much kill the whole http-based World Wide Web.

I think you mean HTML-based. Doesn't really matter which application layer transport protocol is being used.

So, let's say that all these companies get off the internet. What's left of the internet?

E-Mail, for one. Despite the popularity of the web, E-Mail still accounts for the vast majority of internet traffic.

Um, where did you get those numbers from? The last set of data I saw (the NSFNet statistics in 1995) had port 80 use at over 25% (and rising), port 20 at about 20% (and falling), and port 25 at a fairly stable 4-5%. I can't see how e-mail can have clawed back that huge difference, even with the prevalence of free e-mail services.

Interesting that you mention ftp though... I suspect gopher might be covered by the patent too.

We can expect 'pub' directories to have much, much more in the way of specialization and indexing. Personal FTP sites would have vast amounts of things the site's owners would like or find interesting. MP3's, images both conventional and pornographic, movies, text files like e-books and fan-works, applications... The list goes on and on.

A shame the critical mass was never reached when folks could do this with HTML then.

HTML was so much more versatile than an FTP site, so it dominated.

Er... you can use HTML on an FTP site and still navigate around... you get some problems with cacheability but in terms of access to content there's not alot of difference over HTTP

The thing I think we'll see the most of if the web magically went away, would be the proliferation of internet sites that use Post-http era technology. This includes any of the P2P protcols like Gnutella or FastTrack, CVS, Freenet, streaming music and video, distributed problem solving like Seti@home and Folding@home, and many, many more.

The web is stagnant already, so this process is already beginning. Just look at the statistic figures for Gnutella or FastTrack to get an idea.

I don't think it's a case of the web being stagnant, I think it's more a case that people are finding other ways of communicating with each other. The Web is a good way, right now, to share information in a publishing model. Other systems are better for sharing things between individuals (I'll ignore for now the fact that it would be possible to use HTTP to transport the content between the individuals).

Sure we'll see change, we'd see change anyway, we'll continue to see change.

The problem with the Web continues to be the problem in finding things. I'm not sure that peer-to-peer technology has really solved that problem either.