Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Whatever happened to exploring the internet?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 286 posts

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

#231

Post by cblconfederate »

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…

The outside world is even more boring. Especially now that strangers no longer talk but pretend to be busy on their phones.

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

#232

Post by mdp2021 »

wott wrote: post #227
mdp2021 wrote: post #221

> Where would I even go to find other sites that might be of interest? Here?! HN is a collection of references to articles from the most varied www sources... n submissions per day over m different sites, from l users which provide partial indirect profiles: you think one may not find new interesting sources? It would be a job in itself, to check where the submissions lead you. ( n , m , l : maybe dang could provide…

> It would be a job in itself, to check where the submissions lead you. Most likely, straight to the comments section.

It is easy on HN to focus on the debate part, and forget the referenced article and its own www position.

It's not with technical intention: the frontpage currently open clearly lists, with appropriate highlighting: thisworddoesnotexist.com ; nature.com ; twobithistory.org ; michielborkent.nl ; wired.com ; flowingdata.com ; arxiv.org ; techspot.com ; crunchydata.com ; lukasz.langa.pl ; gabrielgambetta.com ; science.org ; thisiscolossal.com ; lambdaland.org ; sparkfun.com ; rongarret.info ; archive.org ; eetimes.com ; axios.com ; theinformedcompany.com ; easypost.com ; austinvernon.site ; heap.io ; reuters.com ; disneyresearch.com ; leadedsolder.com ; fermatslibrary.com ; cnx-software.com ; medium.com/sequoia-capital. It is one's own internal direction (post-perceptual filtering) to ignore that.

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

#234

Post by nitrogen »

md8z wrote: post #184
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 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 be…

Myspace was about 5-10 years after the era they're talking about.

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

#236

Post by ilaksh »

silisili wrote: post #60
cuddlybacon wrote: post #41

Could it be that your over 30? There is a problem known as the multi-armed bandit problem[0]. The problem deals with situations where you have to chose between different options you could take, but you don't start off with full knowledge of the options. You can spend time learning the options (exploring) or you can spend time using the best option you already know of (exploit). Importantly, you can't do both at the s…

I'm guessing there's a more general name for the concept, but drawing a blank. This is essentially the reason advertisers tend to target the young - those over a certain age are more set in their ways and not looking for new options.

Yes, the general name is "ageism". This has nothing to do with young versus old. Younger people are funnelled to a small number of larger sites just as much as older people.

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

#237

Post by truly »

ako wrote: post #213

Most of my exploring happens on Youtube these days: mostly DIY videos from people explaining how to do certain things like home improvement, woodworking, etc. My assumption is that a lot of the interesting sites have moved from text to videos on Youtube.

This is a good point, but still most creators are professionals in the sense of trying to make money out of it (not necessarily a bad thing), whereas in the early web most people with websites were hobbyists eager to share what they know.

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

#238

Post by prirai »

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…

Looks like I'm going on a similar path. Your comment gave me relief.

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

#239

Post by hunter-2 »

I think the need for AI/machine learning to predict what you want has kind of brought us here.

Imagine a Facebook or Instagram not mining your data to show you what they think you want - the results in your timeline will be a grand hash of all the think that's new and happening.

That would have been a vastly different experience.

Except for perhaps Reddit, every other big site today personalizes your content and this has made the internet boring for me.

The only place i discovew new content is Reddit, but again its front page is full of memes and American content.

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

#240

Post by sixstringtheory »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #98
dwd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The only way to escape that cycle is to be a creator (with yourself as an audience of one). Sorry I must've misunderstood: is it a requirement that the audience is an audience of one?

I’ve often thought that some of my favorite artists were completely self indulgent: only making what they thought would be interesting, without caring what other people would think of it. In that way, they only had themselves as their audience of one.

That may not be a sufficient condition for success or innovation, but I think it’s a necessary one.

Post reply on HN