Bring Back the Human Web
The modern internet has become centralized, algorithmic, rented, and disposable. The Old Web Project exists to preserve the independent web, promote digital ownership, and help people rediscover the value of personal websites, open communities, and culture that cannot be erased by a platform policy change.
What this is
A movement to keep the web ours
The Old Web Project is a cultural initiative dedicated to preserving the independent web, promoting digital ownership, and resisting the centralization of online life. We believe people should own their digital homes; that independent websites matter; that discovery should not be controlled entirely by algorithms; and that culture should not disappear when a platform changes its policies.
This is not nostalgia. We are not trying to go backward. We are trying to carry the best principles of the early web — ownership, independence, permanence, creativity, and human connection — forward into the future. The web should be made of places, not feeds.
This is about preserving freedom online — not romanticizing obsolete technology.
The problem
What went wrong with the modern web
Over two decades, the open frontier of personal sites was funneled into a handful of corporate platforms. We traded ownership for convenience — and the bill is coming due.
Platforms own your audience
Build a following for years on someone else’s platform and it can be banned, suppressed, or throttled overnight. You never owned that connection.
Algorithms decide visibility
Followers no longer guarantee reach. A black-box feed sits between you and everyone who chose to hear from you.
Everything is rented
Movies, music, games, even your tools are licenses that can be revoked, edited, or shut down when a contract lapses.
It already happened
Real examples of who holds the keys
The Reddit API shutdown (2023)
Overnight pricing changes killed third-party apps like Apollo and an entire ecosystem of community tools — built on an API that was never the builders’ to keep.
Organic reach collapse
Facebook Pages once reached their followers. Then reach was throttled toward zero, and the only way back was to pay. The audience you built became a toll road.
Vanished digital purchases
People have lost access to movies and games they “bought” when storefronts changed terms or shut down. A license is not ownership.
GeoCities deleted (2009)
Millions of personal pages — a whole era of human creativity — were erased when one company decided the product was over. Volunteers raced to archive what they could.
How we got here
A short history of the web
From hand-built homepages and webrings to algorithmic feeds and the coming AI-mediated web — and how the next web can be human again.
1990s · The Personal Web
Homepages, GeoCities, guestbooks, webrings, weird hand-coded HTML, fan pages.
2010s · Algorithmic Feeds
Identity moves from websites to profiles; creators adapt to the feed.
2026+ · The AI-Mediated Web
Assistants summarize content; fewer people visit the sites behind the answers.
What we stand for
Core principles
Own Your Space
A profile is not a home.
Own Your Media
A license is not ownership.
Preserve What Matters
The web shouldn’t forget everything outside big platforms.
Favor Open Systems
Open standards make resilient communities.
Build for Humans
The web should feel personal, weird, and alive.
Keep the Web Weird
Small communities and experiments matter.
What we’re building
Projects & initiatives
The Old Web Directory & Webring
A curated directory of independent sites, connected the old-fashioned way — a webring with a badge members embed on their own pages.
Visit the ring »Preservation Guides
Plain-language guides to building a site, buying a domain, backups, RSS, archiving the web, and preserving physical media.
See the guides »Research & Evidence
The sourced case for the independent web — platform dependence, link rot, AI traffic collapse, and more.
See the evidence »The Old Web Time Machine
Type in any site and travel to its earliest surviving snapshot in the Internet Archive.
Try it »A belief worth holding (literally)
Own what you love
The same forces that swallowed the open web are coming for the movies, shows, music, and games we love. When everything is streamed, you don’t own anything — you rent a license that can be edited, pulled, or deleted the moment a contract lapses.
So we also stand for physical media and preservation: DVDs, Blu-rays, books, records, and local backups. They reinforce the same principle as a personal website — access should not depend entirely on corporations.
A DVD does not revoke itself.
The web does not have to disappear to be lost.
It only has to become inaccessible, unsearchable, rented, and mediated by systems people do not control. We still have time to choose otherwise.
6 independent sites in the ring · browse the directory · 🎲 visit a random one
Join the movement
Be part of it
You can help rebuild a more human web. Pick a rung on the ladder — from claiming your own corner of the web to backing the mission.
Read & share the manifesto · Get the badge · 🎲 Random ring site