3 HN users recommended this talk4 months2023–2026score 5.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters strongly recommend it as a fun alt-history of the web and bring it up whenever people muse about how the web could have been different.
Dylan Beattie's entertaining NDC talk imagines an alternate history of the web, asking what if different decisions had been made on operating systems, browsers and standards. It blends real history with humor.
“Edit 2: finished, it is definitely worth watching.” (HN, 2023)
> I feel like more people should watch Dylan Beattle's "The Web that Never Was" presentation. Didn’t know about it, here is the video of that talk in YouTube: [this video] There is a poem-style intro titled “Flatscreens / a song about code” until the talk proper starts at 5’11”: [this video] Edit: I’m watching it and it is done in an entertaining style but is a bit loose on some details I know about, such as implying that the IBM PC development was started in the early 1970’s when it was in fact started in 1980. Still worth watching so far. Edit 2: finished, it is definitely worth watching. It goes into “The Twilight Zone” of a very interesting alternative history. And does a good job reporting on the Gary Kildall / IBM missed deal for their PC OS.
Entertaining alt-history talk with Kildall/IBM story.
Whenever someone talks about forking/rebuilding the web, I'll always link to my favorite Dylan Beattie talk about such a hypothetical alternative: [this video]
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
5 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Read more
Citations, criticism and jokes