This cutting-edge “Dial-up Internet” simulator enriches the web-browsing experience and promotes strong moral values even in a decadent Caligula-esque era!

Background:

Part 1: As Internet speeds have increased, web sites have become more and more enormous (Example: Figure 1).

Part 2: Additionally, people have become more and more accustomed to impulsively wasting time on the Internet.

 

usa_today_loading_2.png
Fig. 1: The USA Today front page in 2018 consists of 8.1 megabytes of data (including images and ads) over 1047 unique requests. It takes 47 seconds to fully load all resources.

The issue:

Here are the two problems that we can solve simultaneously:

  1. Enormous web pages are slow to load
  2. People impulsively browse the Internet and have no attention span, since new content is only a few moments away.

Proposal:

Although there already exist tools to artificially restrict Internet bandwidth, none of them provide the full “1998 desktop computer” experience.

Here, we propose a “Dial-up Internet simulator” that re-creates the dial-up Internet experience of the 1990s (Figure 2).

dialup-internet-simulator.png
Fig. 2: When you attempt to use any Internet service for the first time, a lengthy modem connection process occurs, as illustrated here. If you leave your connection idle for more than a few minutes, you will be disconnected and need to endure the dial-up process again.

This “dial-up simulator” system could be implemented either as a browser plug-in, or at the system level.

Conclusion:

The benefit of this system is two-fold:

  1. Web site designers can use it to preview their site in a low-bandwidth mode, encouraging them to design faster-loading sites.
  2. Site visitors can use it to encourage self-discipline and reduce impulsive time-wasting browsing.

PROS: Encourages reduced-size web pages, and discourages time-wasting on the Internet. Brings back the nearly-forgotten “modem connecting” noise.

CONS: None!