Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as a classic, compact explanation of the read/write web and open data, invoked in threads on the semantic web and open APIs.
What it is
Michael Wesch's five-minute video about Web 2.0, showing how the read/write web, XML and user-generated content change how people create and share information.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2022 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec vmoore · 2022-09 · on “The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web”
Just going to leave this gem of a video[0] here. Whilst I agree the web has been walled gardened into various silos like social media, and people think Facebook and Twitter are the Internet, it's still read/write. The blogosphere is still ticking along nicely and last time I checked it's thriving. Yes, people have gamified Google and search to get traffic and the blogosphere of old has largely been co-opted by profiteering gluttons, but there's still hope. Surf Hackernews enough and you'll find little gem posts that don't have an ulterior motive and are not 'monetizing' their content and sprinkling it with affiliate links and ADs. They just want to vent, exchange techne, and share knowledge.
Recommends lysergia · 2022-08 · on “The semantic web is dead – Long live the semantic web”
Long live the dream of the semantic web. For visual learners there’s a great YouTube video explaining the semantic web here: [this video]
Cites drivers99 · 2025-06 · on “MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System”
> it’s APIs we did not have Isn't that what we had about 20 years ago (web 2.0) until they locked it all up (the APIs and feeds) again? ref: this video posted 18 years ago: [this video] (Rewatching it in 2025, the part about "teaching the Machine" has a different connotation now.) Maybe it's that the protocol is more universal than before, and they're opening things up more due to the current trends (AI/LLM vs web 2.0 i.e. creating site mashups for users)? If it follows the same trend then after a while it will become enshittified as well.