Comment by jasode

Comment by jasode 3 days ago

>Wouldn't this be a near perfect use-case for AI generated websites?

A non-tech user prompting ChatGPT to write out HTML+CSS+Javascript still doesn't cover the other logistical challenges of hosting it on a server somewhere. E.g. Buy a domain? Then buy web hosting package? Or use Netlify? Amazon S3?

Maybe someday OpenAI will have AI agents with authority to pay with customers' credit-cards and opens Cloudflare or DigitalOcean accounts on the users' behalf. That's a long time into the future where such a workflow would be trusted by non-technical end users. And then you still have the irony of using another proprietary entity of AI to empower users to put up web pages.

Whether the internet was 1990s Geocities or something like Github Pages today, a user sharing content on a personal webpage is not a trivial task. So non-techies compensate with commercial services such as MySpace pages, Twitter tweets, Facebook pages, or examples like this thread's Google Docs spreadsheet. A common theme of all those commercial services is: they handled the complexities of web hosting.

EDIT reply: >I feel like this response contains within it a great deal of contempt for average people

No, you misinterpreted. I was trying to get techies to empathize with typical end users and understand the reasons why they don't host their own web pages. If that empathy was fully internalized, we'd already predict that a ChatGPT-CoPilot assisted HTML tool isn't the only issue. The gp you replied to highlighted that in his first paragraph.

I have true admiration and not contempt for the end users at this charity using Google Spreadsheets to empower themselves to share a doc without waiting for a "real programmer or webmaster" to do it for them.

>Could you not just ask an LLM how one could host this website for free somewhere,

What's the current best answer for "website for free somewhere" that doesn't have the same criticism of being a proprietary entity that this subthread's gp was lamenting?

the_sleaze_ 3 days ago

I feel like this response contains within it a great deal of contempt for average people and their problem solving ability.

Could you not just ask an LLM how one could host this website for free somewhere, and do the same for any logistical challenges that arise beyond that?

Reply View 2 replies

lelandbatey 3 days ago

People could do that. Or they can click "new doc" in Docs, start typing, then copy the URL and send it to a friend. Look at that, they published a page, no problem solving necessary. Thus people, no matter their ability, will probably default to that approach.
I don't think it's a value judgement to say one thing is easier than another and hence people will. Choose the easier thing.
If we want more folks to use and build websites, it needs to be Google-Docs level easy, otherwise people will use Google Docs.

Reply View | 1 reply
- jijikuya 3 days ago
  
  Exactly this. I do find it kinda funny that Google Docs/Word and their ilk have HTML export options. Kind of a weird funny/sad anachronism. As if there was some hope that people would use Google Docs to make their own contributions to the independent web.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies

jijikuya 3 days ago

I think you're the only one who understands what I was trying to say here, which means I didn't say it nearly clear enough. But thanks.

Reply View 0 replies