You encounter a html document in a forest.
It is affixed to a monstrous oak which sits as if deliberately placed in a fork between two paths.
The layout of this document seems... unplanned. Almost like a desire trail in the metaphorical woods you find yourself in at this moment.
One path gives a strong feeling of a road not taken; a vision of HTML centred on communication from a human to humans.
The other path feels more like an actual history. Real, but impersonal and shaped by forces with (at best) a motive orthogonal to shared humanity.
The document presents you with two links. It is up to you which path you take.
Its corresponding link is a purest blue - nobody has been down this in a long time.
This path seems at once untouched, like it sprang fully formed with the world, but on closer inspection it shows signs of structure and intention. Someone made this.
This link is deep purple and the path well-worn.
If you take this link, know you are just one among many. You sense that behind this door you will find frameworks.
You choose the left path. As the link turns purple you feel a certain peace.
Not ten metres further, you see a new document. This is way cooler than the last one. It uses the latest in html technology to wow you with the full force of the Information Superhighway.
It even has colours.
And the best part of it all - the content is self-describing. The marquee block is about marquees, the blink block isn't working but if it did, the innerHTML would be about blinks. The red block is about itself.
You head down the right path. It turns out this path was a metaphor for React and corporate software development and now you can probably make a lot of money but your pages will just get slower and slower over time, and more laden with trackers and advertisements.
There's no going back. The whole web is like this now.