The internet is becoming more homogenized. I spend quite a bit of time on the cozy web. I love it’s quirks and strange design choices. It’s emphasize on design and typography . See Azlen Elza’s ever-changing site or Andy Matuschak’s notes or the many other exemplars
It feels odd to call these places websites. They’re kind of blogs but not formalized Wordpress lookalikes; kind of journals but more public; kind of personal wiki but more experimental. These spaces are far and few between.
Tools like the Readwise Reader and Pocket are designed to scrape away the top layer of advertisement and distraction and general JS crud to produce a clean, indexable, and clearly readable page. The page’s purest form. actually the purest form would probably be plain text but thankfully most steer clear of that. See A brief rant about Markdown
This is immensely useful but comes at the cost of homogenization. Sure the popups and ads are gone but so are the dropcaps and weird fleuron. Interesting font choices and style. Unique design sacrificed for readability. there’s something about the flattening of the web that makes reading a little boring? Perhaps sameness and difference is related
For news sites, blogs and websites it’s often a welcome addition but for the cozy web it’s a death blow.