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Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#31

Post by bodiekane »

The best thing was that the internet was made by and for smart people.

It was an incredibly unique dynamic- access to incredibly diverse people from all over the world, but simultaneously tilted towards the intellectually curious and tech-savvy. It was maybe a little bit like the vibe of being on a college campus, even if you were talking about sports or the weather, the default level of knowledge, intelligence, openness and curiosity were far higher than the default in "real life".

There was this unique culture of "the internet" as a place separate from "the real world" that was heavily skewed by the demographics. It was a world where nerds were 50% of the population instead of 1%.

Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#32

Post by CM30 »

I guess for me it was how people developed sites because they were passionate about the topic, not because there was a chance to become a millionaire off of it. You had lots of fan sites and technical resources about every random subject under the sun, often without any ads or begging at all. Just random people sharing what they were interested in with the rest of the world.

Now that's mostly gone away. Wikis have some of this spirit left, but most other sites seem to be corporate affairs designed to make a buck first and foremost and teach people anything second. Everything's now seemingly about the 'hustle' and trying to become rich as quickly as possible.

It's one of the reasons I still have an interest in fan games and video game mods. Because they're some of the only communities where just about everyone makes what they do for fun, and where the untested legal situation means monetisation is basically impossible.

Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#34

Post by hulitu »

The Internet was browsable and searchable. Now the browsing part (ftp, http) has almost dissapeared. Search is a shitshow.

The worst part is that the number of assholes, relative to the number of users, has increased. And many of them are corporate employed and represent the corporation.

Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#36

Post by johndavid9991 »

dajtxx wrote: post #20

The lack of tracking, ads, saas, spa, etc. When the internet and web were more about data than commerce, specifically surveillance capitalism.

Those are the good old days, but I need to remember how cluttered the toolbar could be, do you want a web browser with your toolbars? lol

Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#37

Post by adamomada »

Something probably lost to time now but there was this sort of MUD that didn’t really have a game attached, called a Talker

You would telnet to a server : port, usually 3000 by default and sign in to this multi-user chat system. It was divided into rooms or places, with a sort of map system. Meaning you couldn’t just join any room/channel, you’d have to “travel” along and get a glimpse of other users and their chats, mimicking real life in a way.

I don’t know how popular it was around the world, but a major local radio station caught on to it and the hosts mentioned it frequently so it was basically always busy, always a group in it chatting.

This is ca. mid-90s before web browsers were decent, dialup was the norm, and low-bandwidth activities ruled.

Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#38

Post by johndavid9991 »

toast0 wrote: post #4

Early internet felt more like a community. A few years ago, I came across a book that is on the same wavelength. It used to be that being connected meant you were in an alternate world from the rest of everyone; now it's kind of the opposite. Maybe it's my age, but there was a sense of shared exploration of the unknown that I don't feel anymore. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jess-kimball-leslie...

I feel you on this. Technology-wise, the world is more connected, but people are more distant than ever. I don't know what happened, but there are people that I was very close with personally years ago. We are connected on Facebook, but I always disconnect from them. Maybe it's my age, too, but I just don't see the current connection as genuine anymore. The excitement is not there anymore, and maybe we got used to it already, I don't know.

Re: Ask HN: What do you fondly recall about the early days of the Internet?

#39

Post by johndavid9991 »

reify wrote: post #5

Yahoo chat room "Down the pub". pure fun. MS messenger, my young children continually wobbling my screen during chats. The dial-up connection sounds. provided default Wifi password: surname + postcode.

the dial-up connection sound, it's 2024 and I needed to hear this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0
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