I started just kind of randomly surfing on the webring here, and have seen some pretty phenomenal pages and people. Now, I know there are terms around now that define places like cyberspace and sites on webrings, or gopher sites, or even ~verse or ~(insert word here) collectives. All of them are areas of the internet that are not thoroughly indexed, but don't require any special technology and the hoops to jump through to access and engage aren't complicated.

At some point in the past, there was this infographic showing different levels of the internet and it made it seem like there was a lot that was not seen, and it took high technical skill or some ultra specific and complex techno wizardry to access, (like tor, but lets be real, even tor is not that hard to use.)

Needless to say, it still isn't that complicated, and as much as the hard to find areas of the internet may be....hard to find, or cryptic, or whatever. The bottom line is that for the industrious, persistent, and creative folk, getting there is maybe a google search and some light reading away. But because these places fly under the radar (indexing, web crawlers, etc..), they are able to maintain a "Retro" or "indie" sort of feel.

I believe that those places, not tor, but the stuff that can be accessed through a normal browser with a little extra work, are part of what was defined in the previously mentioned "Deep Web" Sort of the equivalent of the beginning part of the "Mariana Trench" of the internet. Deep, but not the deepest. And being there, and staying there, is more about making sure you only make noise in the right places and not being too obvious or obnoxious about those places.

This was more of a random thought I wanted to get out, I'm not looking to define anything officially, and certainly don't claim any authority. I would love to get others' thoughts on the "Deep Web", "Indie Web", and the happy place that C-Space happens to inhabit.