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I Miss the Old Internet

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Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#171

Post by kristofferR »

hnick wrote: post #113
JohnFen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not find Reddit to be a bit of a cesspool? I tend to avoid it for that reason, but how true it is probably depends on which subreddit(s) we're talking about.

It has all the ups and downs of humanity as a whole of course, but as other users have said specific subs (usually less popular and well moderated) are where the gold is. My main problem with Reddit is the repetitive in-culture jokes, memes, and reposts. A lot of content is pandering to the Reddit audience with a flavour that is calculated to win over the crowd (see all the complaints on /r/pics of political signs or…

If reposts are a problem for you then you're spending too much time there.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#172

Post by MattyRad »

"I2P, TOR, and DAT" is an interesting callout in the article. Purposefully removing the search engine as a way of opting out of internet "homogenization" is an interesting counter-culture move. I would be very interested to see if it's possible to reclaim the individuality on the Old Internet using these protocols.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#173

Post by heavyset_go »

anon9001 wrote: post #153
danharaj wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subjecting people to the degrading and hateful ideas that target them for the sake of the well-being of the people spewing it is not an equitable proposition. You can go to voat and debate white supremacists tho.

> Subjecting people to the degrading and hateful ideas that target them for the sake of the well-being of the people spewing it is not an equitable proposition. Is that really true on the internet? "Subjecting people" makes it sound so extreme. In reality, all you had to do was hide a few subreddits and you'll never see them again. They were already removed from the frontpage well before any casual user would encount…

> Is that really true on the internet? "Subjecting people" makes it sound so extreme.

"Censorship" makes it sound so extreme. Is it really so bad that people get banned from a forum?

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#175

Post by andrew_ »

notJim wrote: post #5

I generally agree. I've taken to appending "reddit" to many of my search queries, because flawed though it is, reddit is one of the few places you can read an actual human thought. It feels like nearly all content on the internet is some de-personalized corporate "content marketing" blog at this point. Just give us your email address and we'll send you a PDF (and a drip marketing campaign.) I think the old internet w…

Glad that you've found useful sections. I've always found reddit to be this generation's ExpertsExchange, based on quality of content. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#176

Post by pgcj_poster »

anon9001 wrote: post #151
ethagnawl wrote: post #117

I generally agree with the author's sentiment regarding "the Old Internet". However, using "voat" and "thank goodness" in the same breath raised a red flag for me about the author and their motives. They mentioned being kicked off raddle.me for posting links to their site (the one that's currently linked to on the top of the HN homepage); maybe that was with good reason and not a result of gatekeeping? For example, f…

Congratulations! Your personal values are presently inline with corporate values. The world's largest moderators have you in mind when they're removing content. That must be great for you, because your experience is tailored for your personal satisfaction. And if you ever do happen upon something that offends you, you can report it and rest assured that corporate america will take care of it for you. Now imagine you…

Umm… raddle.me literally used to have "Made with [U+262D: hammer and sickle]" in the footer of every page. It's an explicitly far-left, anti-corporate, alternative platform.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#177

Post by andrew_ »

Swizec wrote: post #152
nine_k wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent. A desire to express an opinion vs an attempt to lure you to buy something while telling you banalities about the topic. Forums mostly see the latter as spam and evict.

How about weirdos like me and other infoproduct indies? We intend to express a genuinely valuable opinion in a useful way and try to convince you to consider buying our stuff.

I don't tend to mind the pitch if it follows the genuinely valuable information.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#178

Post by zanny »

gaogao wrote: post #64
Semaphor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule of thumb for reddit: You want a small community or a heavily moderated community and never a (former, I don’t think this concept exists anymore) default subreddit. Besides some intra-reddit jokes, the site is more like a directory of forums with a unified interface.

There are still the default subscriptions, but the front page has switched over to a more diverse selection of posts. r/askhistorians is I think my favorite example of a very well run and moderated subreddit.

They also have a great podcast!

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#179

Post by kristofferR »

ALittleLight wrote: post #106
superkuh wrote: post #21

The old internet is still there, it's still growing. It's just covered in a thick layer of corporate shit sites. All you have to do is be the change you want to see. Start hosting your website from home. Code it by hand. Don't use any javascript frontends. It's a good time. As for finding others, well, HN isn't a bad place to start. Just install an RSS reader client and every time you find yourself enjoying an articl…

I've been missing the old internet. A little while ago I tried to find StumbleUpon and discovered it's transformed into more of a social media thing. I took a couple days to recreate what I thought of as the core StumbleUpon functionality - click button, get random site. And I've been trying to aggregate what feel like unique, individual, not well known sites into my index for it. https://stumblingon.com It currently…

Awesome site!

It would be cool if you made the button linkable, so you can bookmark it and get a random URL each time.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#180

Post by heavyset_go »

root_axis wrote: post #157

Rose colored glasses. "The old" internet still exists, it's only that there are many orders of magnitude more content available online today than in the old era. The idea that corporate dominance and filtering is hiding content is false, in fact, the opposite is true, today's search engines are better than ever before at finding whatever you're looking for, what has changed is that search habits have become much more…

Google prioritizes social media content in their results.
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