Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

sffworld.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 435 posts

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#421

Post by hyperpallium2 »

christophilus wrote: post #281
hyperpallium2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Search engines were pretty crappy when I first used the internet in the 90s. I’m not even sure that we had search engines, actually. Anyway, crappy search results were par for the course. The interesting content required some work to find. I think it’s still the same. There’s more content than ever, and a huge % is crap. Maybe that % is larger today then when we started, but there’s still a trove of good stuff out th…

Signal-to-noise is a serious problem - hence Google's riches. BTW My reference era is post-search, pre-SEO.

> Way more, in absolute terms, than when I started.

Is it? How can you tell? I would expect there to be more... but also it's less encouraging to do all that work, and people not be able to find it...

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#422

Post by [deleted] »

andyfleming wrote: post #274
hyperpallium2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The landscape has changed, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t high quality content available anymore. For example, a lot of content is on YouTube. That may or may not be someone’s preferred medium to consume, but there’s definitely good and niche content.

[deleted]

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#423

Post by hyperpallium2 »

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #262
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).

Wikipedia probably covers a lot of this ground now, though it's a reference and of varying quality and approach.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#424

Post by markus_zhang »

mrtksn wrote: post #31
markus_zhang wrote: post #17

I actually enjoy today's Internet much more. I'll lay out the reasons: 1) Easy access to many high quality contents. For example HN is a good platform for accessing new knowledge. Note that I say "access", not "learn". Reading HN sometimes give people the false impression that they are learning new knowledge, which usually is not the case. I treat HN as a platform to get a peek at certain new knowledge, but reading b…

> Easy access to many high quality contents. On the contrary, I would argue that the content quality is drastically lower because of optimisation for revenue and much less purer motivations. The video quality is really much much better though. Original video scene is great as the business side of the things is a solved problem. Yet again, it suffers from optimisation for advertisers as less and less things are kosher…

I still believe it's relatively easy to find high quality material, even for amateurs. For example, I can watch live train yard cams nowadays on Youtube (Virtual Railfan on Youtube), and watch people who know what they are doing do live coding. I'm definitely losing myself in a multitude of options but I won't balme it on the accessibility of modern Internet.

20 years ago there were definitely less garbage on the Internet, and less gems as well.

But I definitely agree with the movie part. We still get a few good ones here and there but it's kind of rare nowadays :(

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#425

Post by hyperpallium2 »

keithnz wrote: post #367
andyfleming wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The landscape has changed, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t high quality content available anymore. For example, a lot of content is on YouTube. That may or may not be someone’s preferred medium to consume, but there’s definitely good and niche content.

I think a lot of expert content is now mostly video content. A lot of the time I'm finding I'm just typing things into youtube rather than google if I'm after some kind of expertise.

The information tends to be of lower quality (despite the love). For example, I wanted to know why left and right bicycle pedals are threaded differently. Three youtubers gave reasons that I could tell didn't quite make sense. But Sheldon Brown's website explained it ("precession"). https://www.sheldonbrown.com/pedals.html

Looks like he added this detail later - it's easier to increase the quality of information like this with text, than with video.

Some people add VO later (jarring); Khan Academy re-does videos (breaking references between, confusingly). Most youtubers don't do either.

Videos often have paid product placement, unacknowledged. It's very effective promotion, because it feels grass-roots.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#426

Post by doogerdog »

koheripbal wrote: post #417
doogerdog wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I swear I read a comment exactly like this on Reddit, Digg, and Slashdot before they lost that quality.

Many discussions here turn argumentative but still retain their civility. Many posters will apologize and further clarify their ideas if anyone complains for the slightest reason. While not every discussion is of this level, there are many that are. The forums that I have personally followed as they went to hell showed very little of this even in their heyday.

We also have our own form of Kryptonite, the HN front page list of discussions. Many of the people that get kicks stirring up trouble would not understand or care to read this stuff.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#427

Post by xhfloz »

I agree, and I think some comments are apt to note that we have as (grown, adult) people changed, and what we're seeking is really, on some level, a lost part our former selves (cc: In Search of Lost Time) —- at the same time, however, it _is_ pretty difficult to make these "garish" (as op puts it) spaces today. (Whether or not it's important that the internet is "garish" is a separate argument —- my short argument is I prefer, and would encourage, a greater ecodiversity in the internet landscape.)

Anyway -- I think, despite HTML + CSS + VPS services still existing, the alternatives —- the Well-Styled & Gridded Squarespace sorts, and the plug-n-play platforms like Twitter/Facebook —- are so easy to use that we've come to have disproportionately more cleaned up, mall-like spaces than not. I think.

About a month ago, I did a Show HN for https://mmm.page (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27128424) that was my (small) attempt at creating a platform/tool to help people more easily create these spaces. It's still in alpha, but the Discord (link on homepage) is quickly growing with ppl who have this same frustration.

I have a feeling we'll see more and more counter-2010s-platforms platforms emerging over the next few years... platforms that try to correct our overcorrection toward cleanliness and order and optimization and profit, etc. etc.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#428

Post by anthk »

adventured wrote: post #317
JasonFruit wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When i read on HN and realize just how many people there are like me, or that there’s people that are also way too into disc golf, acoustic guitar, or any other semi niche activity i wonder why it is so hard to make more regular connections and interactions with them. That hit me in the truth. I feel like that a lot: if I know these people exist, and care deeply about the things I care about, why am I not building…

> why am I not building lasting friendships with them? I find the biggest problem is the lack of time to dedicate to it. Specifically, in my order of priorities it comes in behind a lot of other more important things that I don't have enough time for as it is. I've noticed this has become a far more important equation with age, how I allocate time. When I was ~16-24 years old I burned up enormous amounts of time doin…

It's never too late. Read about solarpunk and low-power computers/devices. The old is becoming new again (as new Pubnix communities are rising again, among the gopherspace), plus non energy-wasting science:

http://phroxy.z3bra.org/bitreich.org:70/0/con/2020/rec/energ...

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#429

Post by mbrodersen »

adventured wrote: post #317
JasonFruit wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When i read on HN and realize just how many people there are like me, or that there’s people that are also way too into disc golf, acoustic guitar, or any other semi niche activity i wonder why it is so hard to make more regular connections and interactions with them. That hit me in the truth. I feel like that a lot: if I know these people exist, and care deeply about the things I care about, why am I not building…

> why am I not building lasting friendships with them? I find the biggest problem is the lack of time to dedicate to it. Specifically, in my order of priorities it comes in behind a lot of other more important things that I don't have enough time for as it is. I've noticed this has become a far more important equation with age, how I allocate time. When I was ~16-24 years old I burned up enormous amounts of time doin…

What a great read. This is why I read HN. Thanks! (I am 50+ and agree with everything you say).

Re: I Miss the Old Internet (2019)

#430

Post by dredmorbius »

scambier wrote: post #176
5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you not skipping the bullshit? I feed most of my youtube addiction through mpv and have configured several key combinations which allow me to quickly bisect the video. These videos are always full of comments like "why did I have to spend 20 minutes on this", while they never take more than 15 to 20 seconds from me. By the way, with a proper youtube-dl config in place you don't even have to open the browser:…

> Why are you not skipping the bullshit Honestly? Because I was expecting to hear something interesting at any moment. When I saw the length, I expected to see a technical explanation, a step-by-step how-to, a live example with the ffmpeg CLI. Anything remotely interesting. What I absolutely did not expect was a 6 minutes long "introduction" out of a 8:30 minutes video. All of that to finally say "it's 2 videos stitc…

Skip forward rapidly until something interesting is being said.

When it is, skip back a bit to find the start of that segment.

As with others, I make heavy use of mpv to (mostly listen to, occasionally actually watch) video, on YT and elsewhere. It's exceedingly good at pulling media references out of random URLs, though not bulletproof.

Earlier today I had to scan through the downloaded HTML to find, and fix, the audio URL for a This American Life episode covering Reality Winner. Then I rapidly scanned through the downloaded audio looking for the start of the segment I was interested in --- 37 minutes into a 1 hour programme.

Much as you don't have to read an entire book to find the chapter or passage of interest (I'm mostly referring to non-fiction here), you don't need to placidly sit through full audio or video sessions either.

You can, of course, also repeat sections of particular interest.

Post reply on HN