Presentations require an audience, and an audience is ordinarily not expected to participate in the presentation. The audience expects to be entertained, informed, inspired, awed, manipulated or energized. The Web is structured by formal presentations that are the product of thought and deliberation. Web sites are open to all, but they limit freedom and expression by audiences. Movement within a site appears to be free, but only a structured freedom is present.
Some Web sites allow for interaction, but the interaction is strictly limited.
Some even have space for the audience to communicate with each other, but such communication occurs only where and when the Web designer establishes it. Content can be censored, removed or otherwise controlled by the designer or those who own the site. Most Web sites are intended to sell, entertain, inform, influence or persuade those who log onto them. Despite all the hype about interactivity, Web browsers are also largely responsible for transforming the Net into a relatively passive medium, considerably less active than claimed by those who celebrate the Web as a spectacular breakthrough in interactivity. Users need only point and click their mice, much like the proverbial couch potatoes point and click their television remotes.