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

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

#241

Post by intended »

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…

“Convenience” or getting the player to get the next dopa hit, is not the way the real world is built.

The real world has slow periods and other issues which are usually where the various other aspects of humanity play out.

By definition, games and social media optimize for whatever measurables are measurable AND accretive to the bottom line.

On top of it, most of this current tech world is built on American sensibilities in terms of optimization and business models.

The rest of the human part of existence is.... not optimized for in this universe.

Also do note, people still figure out a way to make friends.

People end up recognizing each other even through random match making, or due to local lobbies.

It’s not all doom and gloom.

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

#242

Post by mathgeek »

sgt101 wrote: post #220
Ntrails wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I quit WOW at about that time, I played from release, the golden days were TBC && WoTLK, but the rot set in when 40 mans were retired. Doing a 40 man and getting the gear from a 40 man was a defining ambition of guilds, not many guilds managed to set themselves up to do regular 40 man runs and you had to ladder up the 40 man content when you did - molten core and on and up. This pressure and ambition drove really str…

I readily agree that old school WoW was much more social and fun, but personally, most of the enjoyment of the game for me was only possible because I was a 20-something with no spouse, no kids, and no real responsibilities outside of showing up to work during the day.

Now that I'm a practicing Adult®, I still kinda dream of WoW Classic being what we all remember the original game being, but I also know that if I got that involved in planning and running raids now, people who rely on me to be responsible would suffer. I'm content with being part of the 95% that don't have that kind of free time to commit to planning before actually playing a game.

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

#243

Post by c0nducktr »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #161
gsich wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's 'toxic'?

Just the new thought-terminating cliché for "things I disagree with".

No, it's more an alternative term for "being an asshole", or maybe a "shit stirrer".

I've got friends who say things I disagree with, they're not assholes. They're nice people with different views. Some people say things I agree with, but at the end of the day, they're still assholes, even though we share some opinions.

Any group large enough is going to have some assholes.

If you get called toxic a lot, it's not just because people disagree with what you say, it's probably how you're saying it.

Further, maybe you're not an asshole in every group, maybe your (and I'm using the word "your" here in a general term, I'm not talking about anyone specifically) personality just doesn't jive with the rest of the group, making you the asshole when you just have a personality which doesn't fit with the group which makes you toxic.

Take for example a subreddit like /r/aww which is just idk, cute photos. Someone who comes to that community and points out flaws, or seems to need to point out problems with the posts, content of posts, etc, well maybe they're toxic to that community, since it's just one of feelgood-ness. It's not that they're a bad person, or have bad opinions, they're just not behaving in a way which seems appropriate for the group.

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

#244

Post by skykooler »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #120
JimboOmega wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know either but I have absolutely had the same experience. Although for me the heyday of IRC was 20 years ago, and even then (in the late 90s) it felt dated and quaint. People at that time were moving on from ICQ to AIM, and IRC was the old, weird place you went to get anime DivX videos in particular. I do think the maturation of "troll culture" has really devalued a lot of the Internet. Virtually any event o…

Go to Wikipedia and press X. Type it again. And again. And again... If you want obscure 80's music you can find archives of old 80's comp tapes from everything to folk to punk to experimental techno ( https://contortyourself-cy.bandcamp.com/album/80s-undergroun... ). I think the 90s+ has way more to offer in terms of just massive amounts of raw weird shit from bands most people never knew to begin with. You can stret…

What is this supposed to do? On OSX 'alt' is swallowed up as a character palette key, to it just types '˛'.

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

#245

Post by drb91 »

tatami wrote: post #187
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?

Get outside!

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

#246

Post by drb91 »

krapp wrote: post #225
hitchhiker999 wrote: post #84

Great! We're all old here it seems (I'm 42), a few of us joined back in the 90s... It started as a great human experiment, such fun. It became co-opted by commercial enterprise. The two largest gateways into the experience are now Google and Facebook. Really, what did we expect would happen? Probably best to take it back now.

> Probably best to take it back now. Why? The internet isn't for us, it shouldn't be a quirky clique only for the technorati, it should to be for everyone. "Normal" using the internet for mainstream, banal and commercial content that doesn't appeal to us is more or less the culmination of the dream. The world has been liberated (at least in part) and connected. Let's please at least take a moment to appreciate what's…

> Let's please at least take a moment to appreciate what's been gained for humanity as a whole

The ability to interact faster? It’s a big wash: positive and negative.

It’s hard to see the internet as objectively good for humanity.

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

#247

Post by mFixman »

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…

You got old.

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

#248

Post by rolandog »

ehnto wrote: post #193
hkmurakami wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Places” is exactly how I think of making new friends in adulthood irl.

Meatspace, the new spatially aware social networking site. No installation required. Make friends where your feet are!

I'd like to make a complaint that Meatspace is inaccessible for n00bs and amputee character classes. Also, higher level characters seem to be stopping new players from leveling up.

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

#249

Post by soundwave106 »

senorjazz wrote: post #230
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 agree with you and am of a similar age and experience. But how much of the above is because "we were young"?

Some of it I honestly feel a lot of it is more the deep commercialization of the Internet, frankly. A lot of modern "commercialization" has involved "clickbait" that is designed to produce some sort of emotion (often outrage at frankly incorrect information). This goes beyond the adverts -- a fair bit of Youtube entertainment feels like cheap stunts chasing clicks to me, reminding me more of the type of tactics reality TV engages in than anything else.

The Internet of the 2000s was more about blogs (eg Livejournal) and forums (like Something Awful, Fark, etc.). A lot of these were not solely advertiser-driven businesses (LJ and SA in particular relied on premium features for revenue from what I recall) and maybe that's a key difference. True, maybe some of it was because "we were young" -- I am in the same age group. But I dunno -- there was a time when I used Facebook quite a bit as well. This is no longer the case. Yet I'm still on a few obscure phpBB forums that seem quite fine to me.

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