The past week has seen me tasked with exploring HTML from the ground level. While there is far more to learn in utilizing HTML, I think that I was able to grasp it decently well. Naturally, writing in HTML really alters the typical workflow in my writing. I have begun some projects that involve recomposing previous academic work and adapting it to an HTML format, so I have begun to apply the basic HTML lessons I’ve gathered thus far.
The workflow is rather odd. Normally, I run into the typical formatting issues in Google Docs or Word. These issues with things like fonts, paragraph spacing, and indentation are all effectively baked into the opening moves in the chess game of creating a new document. I open the document and immediately begin proactively changing these things like a second nature, like the movement of the mouse is hardwired into my muscles the same way the nervous system tells us to breathe (and now you’re thinking about breathing). Once I begin putting the metaphorical pen to the simulated paper, I work with a certain set of expectations regarding what the word processor will and won’t let me do. I may think:
“How can I write this so it plays nice with Word?”
“I should format this another way to avoid this issue.”
Since I have been transposing my work into at HTML document, the entire set of expectations and processes that I have dissolve. Every weird formatting issue, the placement of images, links to sources and more become novel. I begin playing the Googling game in trying to figure out where I went wrong. And that phrase is the precise difference that I’ve taken note of so far. I don’t need to ask how I can adapt to Word or Google Docs; rather, I need to ask how I can get the affordances of HTML to adapt to me.
Harkening back to the Stolley piece, this difference in experience illustrates Stolley’s point about the enabling effect that Lo-Fi technology has in the creative process. Personally, I think that this illustrates the difference between a commodity and a tool quite neatly. Our typical word processors, while certainly being tools, must first be a commodity to the corporation that owns it. This means that the word processor needs to provide some kind of surplus value, or value that exceeds the investment in the word processor’s creation. So, something like Word trends towards consumer dependence and monopolization in its respective market. It utilizes ignorance of complex functionality and perpetuates it through its user interface. It capitalizes on that ignorance so that switching costs begin to arise, as users that may switch programs don’t understand the functions behind the buttons in a manner that directs how the user learns a new set of buttons.
HTML and VS Code don’t quite work this way. HTML doesn’t need to be anything other than its basic use value. It doesn’t need to create switching costs. It’s propagation and development aren’t contingent on its ability to generate surplus value. It actively requires a user to understand bare functionality and how processes work.
Overall, it serves no other purpose than to be improved purely based on its use value as a tool, whereas proprietary software is only improved in its use value as a tool after it has justified its value as a commodity first. Further, proprietary software being a commodity incentivizes a corporation to invest as little as possible into the product. So, even when the use value of a word processor is improved, the improvement is aimed at the minimal effective investment. Because HTML isn’t a commodity, it has to be the best it can be as the only value that matters for HTML is its objective usefulness.
Utilizing HTML has been a challenging but refreshing experience. Using it feels empowering, like its existence is purely tailored towards enabling creation rather than commodifying it. It shouldn’t feel like a tool being just a good tool is a unique experience, but it is. The experience of using HTML pushes me to take Stolley’s advice and further engage with complex Lo-Fi systems. I look forward to seeing what more I can do with HTML, as well as other Lo-Fi tools, as I venture further into future creative endeavors.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.