What’s sad about this preserved bit of 1996 from the WSJ is that it’s interface is much more usable, the design much better, and it is of course much faster than nearly anything built now. It doesn’t attempt to load enormous javascript frameworks, doesn’t have menus that fly out and disappear randomly, and just in general presents the data in a discoverable, readable format. (And there were much better designs than this around at the time.)

Yes, it looks a little strange, as at that time the standard screen size was 1024×768 with many people still having 800×600 screens. It is optimized for a small-resolution screen (in pixel terms) and for dial-up.

That makes it better, though, not worse. Having to load 10MB+ of a javascript framework only benefits the designers who have to code less to get features most people don’t notice or care about, not users.

I miss the old internet. The new, “improved” one is terrible in comparison — even if you don’t take all the data-stealing and info-peddling into account.