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I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

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Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#261

Post by SavantIdiot »

barney54 wrote: post #60

This sentiment of missing an older internet is one reason like like Hacker News. Slash dot was great in the day. Digg was so great in the day. Then the early days of Reddit were great. I’ve been her for over ten years and Hacker News is still good. So thank you to the team that runs Hacker News and everyone who comments for making it a good place to come to.

What the hell happened to Slashdot? I was on it from 1997 until about 2010ish, and now it is pretty ugly.

I think /. cratered due to poor moderation. It's just toxic. Digg is now like Axios for people who think link I do, so I check it daily. And reddit is, well, since the Digg/Reddit wars, its just become all-consuming and too noisy for me.

I'm guessing HN has remained civil because paid mods--who strive to be objective--really do make a difference.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#262

Post by hyperpallium2 »

thom wrote: post #206

I think it's easy to forget we're not the same people we were 20-25 years ago. I see all sorts of lamentations about various things in the world changing and becoming less magical. But as far as I'm aware, I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flame…

You used to be able to find high quality information, by people who loved the topic. Now the top search results are SEO commercial sites; the old sites are gone or filled with ads; and the new sites... there aren't any new sites like this. Maybe stackexchanges are the closest (recently sold).

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#263

Post by flyinghamster »

From the thread:

> If you've never had to configure a sendmail.conf you've had it easy.

Been there, done that. Even with the usual .mc files and m4, once I had to dive deep into the rabbit hole of sendmail.conf to figure out what was going wrong.

Nowadays, I just use Postfix. :)

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#264

Post by jiofih »

thom wrote: post #206

I think it's easy to forget we're not the same people we were 20-25 years ago. I see all sorts of lamentations about various things in the world changing and becoming less magical. But as far as I'm aware, I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flame…

> I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flamewar about it.

But where? The venues where that happened are gone. You can have a public discussion with 100.000 eyeballs, but not the kind of more intimate, local environment that were earlier boards and chat rooms.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#265

Post by scambier »

flir wrote: post #203
fuckwarmweather wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the key combinations thing? Is it just for jumping around in the video or is there more to it than that?

I don't know if it's what OP meant, but I'm imaging starting at the 50% mark, then jumping forward or back 25%, then jumping forward or back 12.5% etc, until you've zeroed in on the nugget of content in the sea of noise. Might make a good browser plugin. Binary search, but for video. Tweaking the exact ratios might be an interesting problem. I'm thinking (no evidence!) that 30% for a forward jump and 15% for a backwa…

An old memory just popped up > The Wadsworth Constant is the idea (and 2011 meme) that one can safely skip past the first 30 percent of any YouTube video without missing any important content. https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/the-wadsworth-const...

The funniest part of that meme is that YouTube implemented a (now obviously removed) "wadsworth" query parameter that skipped the first 30% of a video.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#266

Post by hvasilev »

prepend wrote: post #64

Sadly, it’s the people. The old internet had a filtering function where, because it was harder to use, people had to have some interest or skill to use it. So as a result, I think the proportion of people “online” had similar interest so more content was relevant and made by similar people. Now everyone is online with more diverse interests and capabilities.

This. It also happens with everything, not just the old internet. It is the fun aspect of being one of the few first to reach a certain resource.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#267

Post by Apocryphon »

jiofih wrote: post #264
thom wrote: post #206

I think it's easy to forget we're not the same people we were 20-25 years ago. I see all sorts of lamentations about various things in the world changing and becoming less magical. But as far as I'm aware, I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flame…

> I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flamewar about it. But where? The venues where that happened are gone. You can have a public discussion with 100.000 eyeballs, but not the kind of more intimate, local environment that were earlier boards and…

BBS forums are still in abundance. Many of them seem relatively clunkier now and are niche, but they exist. And they all end up starting Discord servers.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#268

Post by foobarian »

thom wrote: post #206

I think it's easy to forget we're not the same people we were 20-25 years ago. I see all sorts of lamentations about various things in the world changing and becoming less magical. But as far as I'm aware, I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flame…

The thing that's even easier to forget is that back then, a much smaller fraction of people were online and thus we had a very special self-selected group. Going on the Internet basically guaranteed you'd find someone interesting. Then the commercialization happened (Al Gore remember?), AOL hordes came in, trolls came in, jocks figured out how to use it, and it went down the toilet from there.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#269

Post by Apocryphon »

erikbye wrote: post #231
thom wrote: post #206

I think it's easy to forget we're not the same people we were 20-25 years ago. I see all sorts of lamentations about various things in the world changing and becoming less magical. But as far as I'm aware, I could still go and argue about bands in chatrooms. I could talk to other writers and dream about my future best-selling novels. I could go read random opinions about any subject and get into an exhilarating flame…

Yeah.. this younger generation you speak of will at some point lament about Discord or Snap with the same nostalgia. Maybe.

They already do so for Vine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uxJd7aoFM4

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#270

Post by doogerdog »

na85 wrote: post #242
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, you are probably right. For better or worse, I keep thinking that invite only forum is the way go to maintain a decent level of 'interesting conversations'. HN still has them, but it is getting harder to filter through.

I think that that will work in the short term, but unless you're very proactive about recruiting new blood your userbase is just going to dwindle away.

It's true that HN has gotten more crowded with more noise, but it is still the best there is. I won't be going anywhere.

I am constantly amazed at the thoughtful comments from people who are informed on a subject and take their time to layout a cogent argument. This makes it worthwhile to spend some time scanning more and more other stuff. I am getting to be quite a speed reader in this place.

HN will be just fine as long as Dang (and the other guy) spend so much energy here.

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