This is just an idea and I haven't thought to closely about it yet, but what if we made a browser similar to Opera Mini? I.e. a proxy server on the backend would download the pages, render them and ship a snapshot of the DOM to the actual browser, only with all the links rewritten to point to itself?
Alternatively this could even work without a separate browser instance but the ux would be harder.
Obviously this could create a lot of privacy issues but it is not completely clear cut that it couldn't be better for some people:
running ad and tracking scripts on my actual devices also comes with privacy problems.
the server could be open source and the business model could be to sell access to pre-configured, hosted proxies.
I've been thinking I should go back and organize my bookmarks[0].
I might still do that but I don't think it is important: the important thing is I can find stuff I saw years ago.
Sometimes it is useful, sometimes not: it might have disappeared, or might not be as good as I thought back then.
Possibly more important though is the fact that it allows me to forget about it.
A few tricks I use:
I use hidden tags to add context I don't want to share to my bookmarks. For example I add .interesting to something I should get back to or .project to something that I look into because of a project I'm working on. (And “projects” can be both .learningAngular as well as .newCar2018 or .doomedSideProject432).
I use : to namespace tags. As a practical example I often add a license: tag to open source projects I bookmark.
When I realize that I have already bookmarked a page sometime before I'll add a .secondTime hidden tag.
[0]: my collection is older than pinboard.in and used to be on del.icio.us back before they were bought and “improved” until they became unusable.
The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.
The whole original article as well as the interpretation might be worth a read if you work in the field but right now, this part stands out to me because I think this could be a more central aspect of browsing.
So far the closest things I have found is:
Tree Style Tabs – allow me to see a structured tree of where I've been.
pinboard.in – “social bookmarking for introverts”. With a little creativity it might be used to map trails through the web.
Worldbrain memex Looks extremely promising, both their idea and their business model, but I haven't had time to really test it out yet.