Here’s what happened to get us here.

There used to be a service called geocities, you might remember it.

All you needed was a username and password (free) and you had your own website. You chose from a selection of lovely themes and then just typed your content in.

For the really brave you could hand craft your own from scratch, there were even guides.

And most people did because they ran their theme for a bit and then wanted to customise this or that and learned piecemeal.

“Html is not compl...” stop there. Yes, it is. Nit for you and me maybe but.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had the phone call something like “how do I attach an email” or “I download something and now I can’t find it”.

Sure, you can’t find your download folder but go ahead, layout some divs and style them yourself.

“Well then they should just learn X” nope not good enough. You want the web to be open and free? That’s not how you do it.

Part of the problem we have now is that people think running a website needs specialist knowledge and complex computer skills.

You wont convince people to make websites by telling them they need to learn specialist knowledge and complex computer skills.

And I’m not talking about me and you who probably have some tech experience. I’m talking about your average user here.

I am taking about people like my parents and wife who don’t even know what an operating system, server ( and in one case web browser) is. The people who have computers and can use them, but don’t know what’s going on.

These are the people who have had the bar grabbed from them.