This is more of an observation than a true post, but I thought I'd put it out there. I built this website recently for a class assignment, and it was super-duper easy.
You don't have to know how to code. You don't have to know how to design graphics. Heck, you don't even have to know how to embed video - sites like YouTube and Vimeo give you the embed codes to cut and paste, and the website building software provides a handy point-and-paste interface where you can plug the code in.
On one hand, I'm impressed by how accessible the web is nowadays. Anyone can put together a really slick site in no time.
On the other hand, now that people can do all that without any actual knowledge of coding or how the Internet works (not how it's used or how it's accessed; but how it works) I worry that we're providing the illusion that the Internet is open to "the masses" while actually reserving the real knowledge to a select few.
Or maybe we're simply allowing people to know as much as they want/need to know. And is it so wrong to give people what they want? After all, I certainly can't write code or design cool graphics, and I didn't want to have to learn those skills in order to complete my class assignment. I also don't mill my own flour even though I bake, and I've never changed my own oil, even though I drive.
I guess I just wonder what will happen as the Internet becomes increasingly user-friendly, even as fewer and fewer people really understand how it works. I feel like we're setting ourselves up to be ruled by a small group of tech-elites who control the technology on which we all depend by virtue of the fact that they're the only ones who understand it.
Maybe I should learn some XML, after all...
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