WYSIWYG is a concept that pre-dates the web and what this article is talking about is not the same thing. WYSIWYG was coined as a term to describe word processing and desktop publishing software where the appearance of your text matched the final printed output; the same fonts, weights, sizes, styles, etc. That's it.

It's something we mostly take for granted today but was a real advancement over earlier, often text-based, programs that used simple text effects like highlighting or different colors to represent visual effects that were only fully realized when you printed your document.

It has nothing to do with being able to view source, or copy other designs, or any of that.

Aside from the LLM writing vibes, or perhaps because it was written by an LLM, I think this article has very little tether to reality.

> It’s bringing back something we collectively gave away in the 2010’s when the algorithmic feed psycho-optimized its way into our lives: being weird.

It's really not. Prompting an LLM for a website is the exact opposite of being weird. It spits out something bland that follows corporate design fads and which contains no individuality. If you want to see weird websites, people are still making those by hand; the recently posted webtiles[1] is a nice way to browse a tiny slice of the human internet, with all its weirdness and chaotic individuality.

[1]https://webtiles.kicya.net/

Back in the bad old days, people created websites because they had no choice in the matter. You simply had to do that to share anything with the rest of the world. Most of the tools we had back then still exist. The barrier to entry has never been lower, and those that are motivated to tinker do just that. But going through history... once mainstream blogging became a thing, and then social media conquered all, the motivation to share with others became monetized, as did the methods of sharing with others. AI isn't going to fix that. On the flip side, those same monsters that destroyed the world we knew through monetizing everything are the same ones spending trillions of dollars on AI.

> The barrier to entry is lower than it’s ever been.

I don't see a web full of projects created by people who aren't technical. A substantial number of young people grew up on phones and iPads and might not even understand filesystems well enough to have the imagination to create things like this. So the power exists, but the people who are taking best advantage to me seem like the people who were building stuff before the LLMs came to be.

This reads like a love letter to our collective youth. I like the perspective! It's interesting too, because I feel a lot of programmer types might see WYSIWYG and AI both as stepping stones towards a more disciplined approach to engineering.

> Then came Facebook.

Before FB I remember myspace where people could customize theur pages heavily with CSS. Fun times.

I've always wanted a DWIMNWIS code editor: "Do What I Mean, Not What I Say". These days it's likely that AI at least tries to provide this.

No mention of Geocities?!

Any article on the front page these days takes a random topic, then, however unrelated or tenuous the connection, turns it into a pitch for AI.

I’m so tired of this bait-and-switch /rant

This is slop.