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Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

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Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#181

Post by c21h30o2 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #11

I've put some thought on this topic, and I think the driving force between the Internet seeming so small nowadays is a combination of changes to how search engines work, as well a move from forums to big social media which has meant a shift from organic community discovery to being drip-fed content from based on what an algorithm thinks will be engaging. The Internet, as you remember it, still very much exists. Some…

The recommender algorithms cater to the dumbest common denominator, i.e. content with the broadest appeal (no niche stuff) to the most active internet users (people with way too much spare time).

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#184

Post by md8z »

serf wrote: post #127
dunnevens wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. Usually more often. Even in the hellscapes of Twitter or Facebook, you'll find interesting writing, weird animations, or new illustrations. There's immense creativity released daily. Too much for one person to ever keep up with. Just because strip malls are plentiful, doesn't mean good architecture no longer exists.…

>This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. it's pretty undeniable that the web was more unique before the tooling and resources existed for laymen to easily spin up a site using an off-the-shelf solution, style-sheet, template, etc. The grainy photo of slipknot may have been the same one from site to site -- digital media was uncommon and was generally scav…

I'm a little confused to be reading comments where people are nostalgic for that. I feel like I always have to remind people that the web was horrible back then. All I remember from that era is that everyone used Myspace, which allowed you to load arbitrary Javascript and CSS into your profile page. When you visited a new person's page, it was a crap shoot as to whether or not it would slow your browser to a crawl because of all the auto playing videos and javascript animations. And also it seems to have allowed any number of XSS attacks. So maybe the code was "unique" but it was all unified in its singular purpose to annoy you and crash your browser and get your account hacked.

If you consider Myspace to be the apogee of that internet generation then you could say Facebook was the product that killed it off completely, which now seems to bring its own hell of annoyances, security issues, and autoplaying videos. Maybe not much has really changed after all?

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#185

Post by makz »

dwd wrote: post #86
jfengel wrote: post #65

You explored it. That's it. Turns out there's less of it than you imagined. There are, of course, plenty of sites that you could visit. Most of them will be incredibly boring. Years ago you found that interesting just because it was all new, but you don't any more because you've seen similar things already. I suspect that most of those "5 to 6 sites" are aggregators like Hacker News where people seek out new stuff (o…

There is nothing new under the sun. It is a high bar to produce something truly innovative and different, and not just the same old with a shinier interface. Same goes for all the creative arts: television, music, movies, art, etc. You always come up against the law of diminishing marginal utility so very little ever feels as good as it was to begin with. Do you have a favourite band but now only ever really listen t…

My wife tells me: I love how when you listen to music you only listen to the music created by you.

So yes, it’s true, I’m my own audience of one. And I like it that way.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#186

Post by slater »

smusamashah wrote: post #89
dang wrote: post #56

Sorry that this is offtopic, but please don't use celebrity names for your username. It's distracting and basically mildly trolls every thread you post to. If you want to email hn@ycombinator.com to change your username we'll be happy to do that for you. (Same offer for anyone of course.) Until then, I'm going to ban the account for the time being since it's the only way to take care of this short of renaming.

Who is mickjagger?

The singer of the Rolling Stones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Jagger

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#187

Post by stevenicr »

mlok wrote: post #172

A few years ago a few links on HN talked about "the small web", webrings, and drove me to a trove of amazing original little websites exploring the possibilities offered by the web 1.0 mostly. Just like back in the days. And some of them were real pieces of art. I never managed to find them again. For example I remember a website that told a story in the form of a calendar you gad to scroll down, it found it so creat…

Indeed, webrings and 'blogrolls' were awesome - a great way to share the web.

Then google came in and started penalizing web sites for outbound links.

Then everyone stopped the blogrolls and the webrings disappeared - and people even got stingy with linking to a site in a blog post.

Sure, blame 'shady seo' or what have you - and yeah that became a thing, but the real blame is google. Pushing sites down google was such a scary thing that wordpress took the previously-in-core linkroll out in future updates - even if you have a blogroll with just friends - it was removed - many did not know - and if you did, you had to go install a plugin to bring the functionality back.

Of course the better options would of been to just auto-nofollow tag all the blogroll links - share the web and not to worry about a google penalty or being associated with 'spooky sounds "bad nieghborhood" in google's alog-eyes'

I'd love to see web rings brought back with auto-nofollow added - and a stats system that was open to all who installed / used it for webring X Y or Z - and blogrolls that are easy to nofollow.. better with hover preview / a note about why you love site Y or what have you.

It would be better for the web, but it's not easy to do currently and not a big benefit for the work right now.

Anyone remember when the search engines had a web ring to try the search at other engines at the bottom?

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#188

Post by mch82 »

noduerme wrote: post #162
serf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. it's pretty undeniable that the web was more unique before the tooling and resources existed for laymen to easily spin up a site using an off-the-shelf solution, style-sheet, template, etc. The grainy photo of slipknot may have been the same one from site to site -- digital media was uncommon and was generally scav…

I'm old enough that I had to hand-write all my web code when I started in the business, and I still do. Primarily because I never liked templates or wanted to learn how to tweak them - that's learning someone else's framework and being at their mercy. As it turns out, writing your own code is a lost skill and the companies and individuals who do need that service are willing to pay an arm and a leg for it. So I can c…

In 1997 a classmate would write HTML on paper with a pencil during class. It slipped my memory until recently & now I like to imagine it worked out well for him.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#189

Post by greggman3 »

I find new stuff all the time via HN, friends, etc. Today I saw this

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/26/22738125/adobe-photoshop...

and I stumbled on this (no idea what it really does)

https://www.adobe.com/products/aero.html

and from HN this

https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/

and

https://www.thisfuckeduphomerdoesnotexist.com/

I don't find that any different than it was 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago really.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

#190

Post by herval »

ergot_vacation wrote: post #75

Something nobody seems to be mentioning: the 2008 crash happened. The "cool" internet was largely populated by two things: People screwing around creating content in their spare time, with no expectation of profit ("Hobbyists"), and eager entrepreneurs burning through tons of money trying to find the "one weird trick" that would make them rich on the net. Most of #2 failed, but while it was happening it provided a ho…

Was that really correlated? It feels to me that change more strongly correlates with the rise of Facebook for everything and the Appstorification/mobile. 2008-2012 were the golden age of mobile apps and games like Farmville, for instance…
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