A Conspiracy Theory?

In the beginning, web pages were written with text editors. And to this day, a good text editor is (or should be) the number one tool of a webmaster. Best of all, every operating system includes a text editor FREE! Browsers, needed to view the web and check web development work, are FREE! The major web programming languages -- Perl, Java, JavaScript, and PHP -- FREE! Even the highly touted mySQL database is FREE! (Don't bother asking your Internet service provider or web hosting service why you pay extra for a commerical account featuring Perl, PHP, and mySQL, though. It won't do any good.)

This begs the first question: Why are webmasters expected to fork over BIG MONEY for tools to do something that can be accomplished -- and accomplished better in most cases -- with tools that are expensive or even FREE! The answer is simple:

You Don't Make $$$ Giving Away Free Stuff

Free stuff is a great come-on, but it doesn't put dinner on the table. Fortunately for capitalism, human nature is the same online as in realspace. And over time several things happened to the Internet. Brace yourself, you're about to plunge briefly into a couple of deadly sins, notably greed and sloth...

• Internet service providers opened up the Net to MILLIONS OF POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS, providing almost zero orientation and support.

• Marketing mavens, drawn the the BIG MONEY and MILLIONS OF POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS, discovered a WHOLE NEW WORLD filled with victims, er, prospects and leads eager to prove P.T. Barnum right.

• GET RICH QUICK schemes proliferated faster than a virus hoax or bogus missing child chain letter.

• Everybody was going to become an INTERNET MILLIONAIRE, if they weren't already heavily involved in Internet stalking or pedophilia. A lot of people wanted to GET RICH WITHOUT HITTING A LICK OF WORK.

The allure of INSTANT RICHES ON THE INTERNET snagged almost every business in existence. Of course, the established bricks-and-mortar operations invested well in their sites. But, as we know now, many a start-up was based on some college junior's business plan project. Most INTERNET MILLIONAIRES seem to have made their money selling off after their IPOs.

Job Security Through Complexity

While all this was going on, two other important things were beginning to take place...

1. Big software companies decided that there were a lot of gullible people trying to build web pages and become internet millionaires. Surely, it was too difficult for those poor klutzes to learn a few SIMPLE RULES for writing HTML. What the world needed was FANCY SOFTWARE for generating web pages with minimal end-user thought.

2. Colleges and universities realized that if something were not done -- and quick -- there wouldn't be a lot of GREAT JOBS for all the mediocre students that were piling into their computer science and business administration programs. Let's face it -- not everybody is cut out to write C++ or manage a department store. Forwarding-thinking academics also realized that whole new programs in WEB DESIGN and WEB DEVELOPMENT could be put together, with plenty of classes to be occupied by paying customers, er, students.

It is NO COINCIDENCE that the "non-profit" groups that develop the standards for HTML and the Internet in general are dominated by representatives from big software companies and universities. Without employer support, who can afford to volunteer for projects like that? And it is also not a coincidence that, since the first HTML standard was introduced, the level of complexity has increased exponentially.

By making the standard more complex, it becomes harder for an amateur to develop web pages. That creates two important NICHE MARKETS. Fancy software is needed to automate what ought to be a simple process, and trained web developers to operate the software. This is an extension of an old JOB SECURITY rule that computer programmers have followed for over fifty years: write complicated code, document nothing, and make sure that the program has to be rewritten regularly. (This also sounds a bit like how Detroit designs automobiles, doesn't it?)

Software that automates the process of building a web page can be set up to make that web page as complex as possible. This reinforces the need PROFESSIONAL WEB DEVELOPERS and ever more "sophisticated" software and, just as the increasing complexity of automobiles has made it virtually impossible for even a good home mechanic to work on his own car. As an added bonus, software companies can promote their other products through their development tools. If you don't think this is true, take a look at a website designed in Microsoft Front Page using a Netscape browser!

Since the whole intent of standards is to allow web pages to work on different operating systems and in different browsers, the differences in how the two dominant browsers render a web page would be amusing, were it not for how hard the "industry" has worked for increasingly complex specifications.

K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

The point of this little essay is that IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY. Although the HTML standard has gotten more complex, it has to be backwardly compatible. This entire site, including the CGI scripting and graphics, was produced on a SOFTWARE SUITE costing less than $100. Most of the tools I use - and the tools I use the most (my trusty text editor, Perl, and mySQL) - are freeware. SAVE YOUR MONEY for "weapons."

If you write your own web pages, you'll want to follow this series of articles, as I look at AFFORDABLE solutions for small business webmasters. And if you opt to HIRE A WEB DEVELOPER, you'll want to follow this series, because I'll be outlining some of the things to look for and some of the things to avoid.

In future articles, I'll pit several HTML generators against raw hand-made HTML in head-to-head tests, talk about Palm OS® programming and handhelds in general, and rant endlessly about the evils of "FEATURE RICH" software that is all feature and no function. Stop back by.

djeaux
14 August 2002

P.S. In case you're wondering, all the EMPHASIZED phrases in this essay are the stock keywords that so-called "marketing experts" always emphasize on their web pages. You know the guys I'm talking about. Of course, my theme is probably the antithesis of what those "experts" stand for. If this parody gets picked up on the search engines and shows in their listings, I'll be in HIGH COTTON!