Disappearance of RSS.
So a rotation of a small number of sites. Because who wants to click through hundreds of bookmarks when 99% of the time there is no new content. Not a complaint, just that most sites don't update every day.
Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
141–150 of 286 posts
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#142I can save you the trouble. The internet is full of people: in short, avoid.
However, the internet is also what you bring to it. I took up playing synths last year and it's a whole new community of makers, hackers, and artists that was invisible to me before participating in that art. The same is true for any instrument. I have other pursuits that are almost completely unrepresented online other than some rich technical how-to's, which are great. Doing things whose online communities aren't representative of the real world activity makes me optimistic that the real world isn't like reddit.
Learn a thing and do it often, if not eventually even well, and it changes the lens you see the world through.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#143It's because your interface to the internet is not browsing-based. Back when we used things like the Yahoo directory as our main method of searching, we'd travel down different categories, finding unexpected websites as we went. That felt like exploring, because you were making choices about which direction to go, and that would determine what you saw next. With a search engine, you tell the search engine what you wa…
There are other browsing tools besides directories that have “died” del.icio.us and stumbleupon being 2 that spring to mind and hock supporting a true “browsing” experience.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neat! So uh, where is that stuff? Link us!
Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, Instagram and TikTok. And elsewhere.
I guess this proves the original poster right that there are only 5-6 interesting websites left on the internet. I also only check these 5 sites+HN.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#145Hey, I have an answer to this!
and its part of a successful assumption I've been able to make for new ventures.
Basically, you do explore and visit plenty of sites, but you click through to them from timelines and what your friends shared in groupchats.
My successful assumption has been this: the URL does not matter. or more specifically, the TLD does not matter. .coms do not matter. By proxy, SEO usually does not matter either.
Your client base is going to click through to your domain name from seeing it shared somewhere else.
Or, lets get even more specific or perhaps grim: if your business model relies on people randomly finding your service from a search engine, or typing in the direct url, you have failed. if "failure" is too strong, then pointing out how much time and effort is being wasted from the strategy and how much alpha is being missed from better more relevant business models is more accurate.
so back to you, you explore from the timelines and chat rooms. if thats not good enough you need more exciting communities to be a part of.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, Instagram and TikTok. And elsewhere.
I guess this proves the original poster right that there are only 5-6 interesting websites left on the internet. I also only check these 5 sites+HN.
No, you're missing my point - the best way to find new sites is to check the link aggregators where people post those sites from. The best way to find new content is on the sites where that content gets posted.
I mean, the fact that you only check a few sites and HN doesn't say anything about the rest of the internet. How would you even know if the rest of the internet is interesting or not if you never bother clicking a link out?
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#147Seems like we just have a better "map" now, but I don't otherwise agree with your idea at all. HN has 30 or so unique sites linked from its front page that constantly are swapped out for other ones. You probably have never heard of many of them before. Why isn't this "exploring"?
Everything posted on HackerNews has an agenda.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Link us!
Here are a couple of user created content subreddits I like. They fall into the general overlapping categories of making and fixing things, and taking cool pictures of clouds, plants, and *nix desktops. :) If you prefer the new layout you can "s/old/www/g". https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CLOUDS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electronics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/ https://o…
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#149I've recently read a first-person account of working with Naval blimps in WW2, researched RC blimps, read an article about a recipe for Russian marshmallow treats made out of apples, found a solution for repairing a set of vintage speakers, learned about Aztec gods, read a list of vintage sad Mac codes, and got clues as to what predator killed one of my chickens.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?
#150> I seem to have collapsed down to checking 5 to 6 sites. I check about 20 sites regularly even when I have other interesting things to do. > Where would I even go to find other sites that might be of interest? Search engines? > Whatever happened to the idea of “exploring the Internet”? It sounds like you would like to find lists of recommended sites that people used to have on their homepages. Most people don't main…
> Search engines Which search engines in 2021 give you real, interesting websites and not SEO gamed content pages that exist only to serve ads?
Bubbling can be avoided with something like DuckDuckGo or Startpage, albeit SEO gamed content is still an issue.
Marginal search engines may be better at avoiding it, as optimizing for them wouldn't be that profitable, but I haven't tried any.
You could try checking out lower results, or search the SEO gamed content for hints that help you dig deeper.