I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#181

Post by oblio » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:37 AM UTC

ergomarky wrote: post #100

fardo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel like this problem wouldn't be limited to a person's use of the internet but would be an indicator of a person's lack of curiosity in general I don't agree with that idea. When people say "The internet isn't fun anymore", I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced. By analogy, if content on the internet is like a liquid flowin…

>I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced. It's not a change in the person, it's a shift in perspective due to boredom. There was a podcast about boredom from freakonomics I believe, and a lot of people (largely those 40+) simply don't view themselves as bored when all signs paint a different picture. This is what is happening to a…

It's also amusing to portray the internet as being some small entity. It's basically infinite at this point and it supports a million different interests, way more than it did in the 90's. Back then the whole internet population was in the millions and it was mostly geeks. Now it's in the billions and it covers everyone. So there's a ton of normies, but if you don't like what they're going, there's still at least the same amount of geeks available, probably more.

As you said, you just have to go looking for the weird and interesting places :)

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#182

Post by ryan-allen » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:38 AM UTC

dchuk wrote: post #27

foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day. Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”. If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

Facebook Groups offer that to a certain degree. I get a lot of value out of small facebook groups I'm a member of, but they are not the same as the old forum-style, and it's on Facebook.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#183

Post by CookieMon » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

> I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though.

It was a place by and for enthusiasts, and now it isn't.

So not just the people or the technology maturing, the demographic fundamentally shifted. I suspect it's also become the strongest whirlpool/second-life for people trying to fill a hole inside.

People always say was better before it was popular, and I never really bought into that, but my assumption that 'gatekeeping is bad' causes cognitive dissonance in the face of how the Internet changed.

But hey, I don't envy the kids who'll have to use this place once my generation is geriatric. Like hell I'm just going to sit in a chair and stare at a wall as I go senile - I'll be here, improving the place. Kids today will reminisce about the days when the Net wasn't a way of keeping senior citizens occupied.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#184

Post by Ntrails » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

frio wrote: post #95

y2bd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much how I felt as a long-time TF2 player super excited for Overwatch to come out, and then very sad once I realized what kind of game it was. You grab your friends and play Overwatch, while you play TF2 and meet your friends. And also a parallel, TF2 obviously still exists, but all of the servers I used to play on are gone now. Haven’t found anything else quite yet. FFXIV actually was super enjoyable…

This is a thing that's bugged me for a long time: the death of dedicated game servers. Game servers had to be run by communities, and they were gateways and feeding grounds for those communities. However, games don't typically use dedicated servers anymore; they use matchmaking. You're right -- matchmaking means you gather your friends first. More insidiously, it means you probably won't see the same players again, a…

> More insidiously, it means you probably won't see the same players again, and even if you did, there's nowhere to find them again later. There's no community to join.

This actually reflects a change I remember WoW making and finding really hard to accept. They changed the rules for "find a dungeon" such that you didn't match people on your own server. Which seems great - because now there's no need to wait 10 mins for a group to accumulate! No spamming in regional chats to see if anyone is interested. Brilliant non?

Except when you made groups with people on your own server, you bumped into them again. You were probably a similar level/gear. You might add them as a friend and then ping them for instances because they were competent (especially if tank/healer). Heck, if they're in a guild maybe you think it'd be a cool group of people to play with or vice versa you might try and add them to your guild.

When every person you meet in game is a "single serving friend" there's no point making an effort. People will treat those they play with as essentially NPCs helping towards a quest because why wouldn't you?

I refuse to believe that it made people more engaged (considering the friends I made were a good chunk of the motivation to keep playing)

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#185

Post by carcrash » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:49 AM UTC

21 year old here, I also do not enjoy the internet these days as much as I used to 5+ years ago. Everything seems dumbed down, which is a common trend with just about everything these days.

I do not use social media, I browse one car related forum, and a Chan site. I mostly lurk these sites and rarely have input, but that's more of a 'me' issue.

The community feeling just isn't there anymore. We've done a complete 180 from a few years back, my first online friends were from Xbox Live and I met these people in Halo 3 lobbies. When I played WoW during Wrath I played on a very low population server which annoyed me back in the day but I realise now that the memories I have are because of the small community, same goes for the private servers I played. All the friends I have now I have known for years or met them through other friends.

Maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree and I need to develop new skills, hobbies, and find new friends.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#186

Post by personlurking » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #44

I think a lot of people here are missing the point. Yeah, there's a lot more content to consume now. However, it doesn't feel like a community... it feels more like watching reruns on TBS. I remember making actual friends on message boards. Friends I eventually met in the real world. I don't think relationships like that are really formed anymore. Most of social media now is a broadcast, not a conversation. People (m…

I feel like the time when online connections (ie, over long distances) ended in real-life encounters was good throughout the decade of the 2000s. After that, people became too flakey due to social becoming too important (the type that click "I'm going" to an event, but only do so as a means of saying they like the idea of going to said event).

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#187

Post by tatami » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:56 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #141

This entire thread makes me realize that what people are missing isn't the internet but their own childhood.

Not just childhood, but I miss having that first-time experience for some of my (later) favourite activities.

Guess I have to try new things ... but what?

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#188

Post by personlurking » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:58 AM UTC

cityzen wrote: post #6

I have been saying I've "reached the end of the internet" for awhile now. I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then. Trying to get a 56k modem to work, dealing with the fact that you couldn't always get online or if you did you could get kicked off at any time. I remember streaming the Tibetan Freedom Concert with realplayer back in '98. The first mp3 i got, napst…

> I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then.

I'm several years younger than you, but I started using in the mid-90s and everything you said rings true for me, too. Anyone who grew up after the "Oregon Trail generation" (born in late 70s/early 80s) missed out on this. The internet was frustrating back then, but it was also really interesting.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#189

Post by noyesno » Tue, May 15, 2018, 9:00 AM UTC

dchuk wrote: post #27

foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day. Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”. If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

How about creating an Usenet newsgroup for HN?

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#190

Post by csydas » Tue, May 15, 2018, 9:08 AM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #184

frio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a thing that's bugged me for a long time: the death of dedicated game servers. Game servers had to be run by communities, and they were gateways and feeding grounds for those communities. However, games don't typically use dedicated servers anymore; they use matchmaking. You're right -- matchmaking means you gather your friends first. More insidiously, it means you probably won't see the same players again, a…

> More insidiously, it means you probably won't see the same players again, and even if you did, there's nowhere to find them again later. There's no community to join. This actually reflects a change I remember WoW making and finding really hard to accept. They changed the rules for "find a dungeon" such that you didn't match people on your own server. Which seems great - because now there's no need to wait 10 mins…

Part of this is the access to engagement within the game. As games rely more and more on multiplayer (think LoL/DotA, Overwatch, WoW Raids requiring a group), to get to the actual content you want you need to assemble a team, either programmatically via matchmaking or by existing friends.

And the waits can be very long in competitive scopes to have a good match. I can only speak from LoL as an example, but our group like most had people bounding around all levels of play, so matchmaking could take a long time. The team's MMR undoubtedly was an accurate representation, but this also probably meant there was a very narrow set of ready to go teams that were reasonably fair matches. Prior to Riot's heavy handed overhaul of the Matchmaking, this sometimes would result in some absolutely uneven matches (a bunch of Diamonds getting piled onto a group with 1 Diamond and several bronzes/unranked.

Pre-overhaul, it often mean a 20 minute stomp. Post-overhaul, it means waiting, sometimes 20 minutes+ to get a simple game, when most of us only have an hour or two spare.

It's a difficult balance for designers, and I don't envy what they have, but the nature of a lot of games has changed to require the participation. The logistical challenges of providing fair/balanced as well as fast matchmaking while still letting players play with their friends (however many they have) is a real hellish problem to solve, as the solutions are often at odds with one another.