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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?

#91

Post by aaron695 »

You got old and boring.

REvil and co dump gigabytes of data from random companies each week. Have you explored all that?

That's a lot of cool stuff happening with Islamic drones, modifying payloads and the like. You could work on those. 3D weapons also have an amazing eco system, JStark death barely even rated a mention on HN. Hezbollah explorers went into WW1 sunken ships in diving dresses to collect explosives to make rockets, there's multiple cool things about that.

Get into counterfeit fashion. The Chinese have crossed Kanye West's YEEZY Foam Runner with UGG boots, warm and cyberpunk. Counterfeit body mod drugs are getting pretty interesting.

Maybe we should add rich to old and boring.

HN is classic dead internet. That's part of the rich problem. Fake companies doing fake AI hiring fake IT devs for fake ridiculously high amounts of money, it's become in part a fake universe.

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

#93

Post by mrtksn »

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 think you have a point but could it be that after some age we simply don’t have time to explore because we are required to exploit?

I personally know some quite old people who seem to be into exploring all the time with periods of exploitation and all of them are people with mundane jobs that end when it ends. Their mental capacity is at their hobbies and they sometimes invest into their hobbies a lot, however they would come up with other hobbies all the time.

That’s in contrast to the white collar folks who’s life becomes work and all they do outside of work is to pay for some curated experience like vacation to Paris or Cooking lessons. They never have time for anything, they deeply specialize at something like building systems that catch people engaging in known money laundering schemes.

After some age you are in track to specialize a lot, make a lot of money and spends that money within the acceptable framework with your peers.

Also, the effects of the algorithms could be strong too. I noticed that it has been quite some time since the last time I was bored deeply. At the slightest sign of boredom I find myself getting entertained on one of the few apps and website I visit. It makes me feel like I’m exploring but in reality, I rarely see anything that is not a variation of something from the narrative of the platform.

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

#94

Post by chmod775 »

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…

> I got Guy Nadon, an actor in nothing I've ever seen

How exciting! You might discover a movie or series nobody in your bubble has ever heard of! It might be cinema of a kind you've never even dipped your toes in!

Whether something is boring or exciting is almost completely subjective and it doesn't really matter how much you already know, since there's just so much stuff.

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

#95

Post by thrower123 »

I miss webrings, those were nice for taking random walks through related sites. Blogs don't do this much anymore, and outlets like Medium and especially Substack keep you inside the walls of their author. Browsing geocities or angelfire used to be like taking a wiki-walk back in the day.

RSS is still viable, combined with link aggregators and newsletters for discovery of new material, but it's a very different experience.

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

#96

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

> 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.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Google used to prioritize forum posts in their search results. They even had a feature to limit search results to only forum posts via a "Discussions" option on the results page.

These days, Google prioritizes social media content, click bait and blogspam that has a lot of ads. The "Discussions" option is gone, and even recent forum posts are nowhere to be found on the first few pages of search results.

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

#97

Post by heavyset_go »

smusamashah wrote: post #87
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 just wrote an answer to this post and saw your comment afterwards. I am over 30 and the pattern I explained in my comment all points towards getting older and mature. Does it mean that young people are still exploring the internet and computer today the way I use to back when I was young?

> Does it mean that young people are still exploring the internet and computer today the way I use to back when I was young?

Yes, but they're exploring TikTok, YouTube and to a lesser extent, Instagram. There are oceans of content to explore on those platforms.

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

#98

Post by abnercoimbre »

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…

> 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?

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

#99

Post by bduerst »

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…

Also new technology = new plateaus to explore.

Internet really boomed and flourished in mid 2000's, and then the mobile and the app space took off in mid 2010s, where we had new content/ideas/innovation. Even way before then, VHS kicked off a video golden age in the 1980s.

Kind of curious to see the next frontier that gets propped up by a technology this decade. I thought it was going to be consumer robotics but it's probably still too soon for that.

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

#100

Post by antoniuschan99 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #88
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…

This trend also applies to music. 2008 put a hamper on the DIY scene. It's harder to find the time and resources to make music, let alone tour, since many artists, and would-be artists, have to work multiple jobs just to pay rent.

Reminds me of this video on why 2007 was the best year

https://youtu.be/IafB6r4hi6g

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