Lost and Wasted Time: Searching for the Cozy Web

Marcel Proust’s masterwork explored involuntary memory—those small, unexpected triggers that send us down pathways of insight, connection, and meaning. A decade ago, the web had a similar quality. The “cozy web” was filled with web rings, virtual pets, personal corners, playful detours, and seemingly useless spaces that quietly nurtured human creativity.

In this talk, we’ll revisit the cozy web as a form of cultural and technical resilience. As generative AI, chat interfaces, and post-browser experiences reshape how we build and interact with technology, we risk optimizing away the very qualities that made the web adaptable and human.

To future-proof what we’re building now, we’ll explore how memory, serendipity, and personal context can be intentionally designed into emerging systems—so the next era of the internet remains creative, humane, and durable rather than brittle and purely transactional.