Very insightful social analysis of the web (though a small part of the web). Maybe rewrite it so it's more succinct? I'm picky about writing because I'm a bad writer.
In any case, I feel you.
However, I think "individualism web" will deflate if it's not deflating already. And "collectivism web" is making its comeback. Many community-oriented people are working on this, myself included.
Not saying that either one will die out. Individualism and collectivism are evolutionarily inter-dependent traits that we've all inherited. I just wish we can address these issues more as suppose to always talking about getting more user, more traffic, and more buzz. (Not that they don't matter.)
This is the second revision. I could shorten it, but I wanted in part to talk about the forum-owners scene, along with talking about start-ups in general. Forums are where I first entered the Internet, and I still look on them fondly: this essay was partially a reminiscence. Is that what you were talking about?
I think that individualism web appeals to vastly more people than collectivism does. I'd guess that there's ample room for both online. Most people use the Internet for recreation primarily, though, and most people don't want to recreate beyond the small-talk level.
I remember telling friends about Zoints: this was before I even had a MySpace account. I would excitedly show them how many web pages I had and how many more I could make; I showed them how you could drag-and-drop. I think the most sympathetic reaction I got was "Oh, wow, that's neat." A few people actually did register, but there was never anything there to keep them active. Zoints didn't encourage frivolity.
I agree that individualism web appeals to a lot more people. And yes, most people still use internet for recreation purposes only. But that's changing. My understanding of individualism and collectivism is that they are not two separate entities. In fact, they feed on each other. For example, let's look at this "evolution"
1. Lots of people experiment with individual expression on live journal (or whatever was popular back then)
2. Good writers get more attention, bad writers drop out
3. Some of the better writers get so many traffic that they decide to open independent blogs
4. The best of the blogs always serve critical functionality for the community (consciously or not). Either by delivering valuable information, e.g. news, or by (virtual) bringing people together, e.g. comic strips.
When I look at this evolutionarily, it just makes sense to me. Humans are collective animals. We know that one of the main reasons that collectivism works so well is because of Divisions of Labor. Interestingly, at the core of Division of Labor is the requirement that everyone takes on a specialized and often unique role, which is very individualistic.
Thus it is important to work towards the "few but better blogs" kind of collectivism-individualism system.
I'm pretty confident that on a larger time-scale, the internet is going in that direction. At least for myself, I enjoy a well organized forum a lot more than having 400+ facebook friends.
Do you intentionally not allow IE users to view your site? I get redirected to http://www.shlomifish.org/no-ie/ when I try to view your site using IE7.
IE7 messes up the floating layout that I use for my site, same as IE6. I don't consider myself a dedicated programmer per se: I don't have tolerance for coding to browsers that don't at least meet Acid 2 compliance.
