Live data from Hacker News

The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

cheapskatesguide.org

231–240 of 409 posts

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#231

I have never understood people who mourn the death of the "old" internet because I do not feel I have lost it. Particular communities come and go, as they always have, but I have found that the I can find the same sorts of gathering places for the same kinds of people I always have - in about the same numbers too. The thing that has changed is that a huge swath of new people have come online and, though some of what…

I'd say, with a very exaggerated tone :), it would be like saying you can still find trees in New York, so really nothing has changed since settlers came.

I don't think this is an apt analogy because trees were bulldozed to build the city, not true of the internet which has essentially infinite real-estate. Nothing was bulldozed to create the "new" internet, the new internet was created and new people joined it, the old internet just never achieved "web scale" and never could because it isn't a corporate product being driven by growth hacking and marketing spend.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#232

I sure hope that's right. It was the best feeling in the world to stand up an Apache server on my Amiga, and later my little FreeBSD server, and see my friends viewing the website I was hosting on my dialup connection. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't elegant, and it certainly wasn't fast, but it was mine . I made that. From installing the server to writing the HTML, I owned that service from end to end and had completely…

> I can picture someone running an IPv6-only service on their phone to impress their friends. I know what their smile would look like because that was once my smile, too. Wow. Do you know if there's any enthusiasts out there doing this? A phone would actually be a great hosting device for tinkerers. It's always on, always connected, and supports IPv6.

I tested this with my old phone and it certainly worked even on non rooted android but I do not deployed it full time.

There is however this starlink dashboard hosted by awlnx on starlink and its IPv6 only. https://starlink.awlnx.space

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big problem today is that platforms only highlight only popular/trendy or paid content. What I would like to see are platforms that give regular people a chance either through chronological or random discovery. There is so much great content out there that doesn't make it into the limelight because of algorithm bias or because creators don't have the money/resources to boost their content.

Yeah I think the long tail really suffers with a lot of popularity algorithms. Instead of a mixed bag with a bit for everyone you get the absolute lowest common denominator.

The long tail isn't in unalloyed good for producers of long tail content/products. While some sales/views are better than no sales/views no individual site is making bank on sales.

It's great if you're Amazon or Google Ads which basically serve the long tail. They benefit from the entire tail.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was reading a security paper today that made a killer observation about trust infrastructure: public trust systems will always succumb to problems of informational asymmetry (moral hazard, adverse selection) so responsible users must always rely on private trust assessments first. Same problem with information discovery—trust, reputation, it’s all the same social mechanism. Any public signaling will be degraded by…

> public trust systems will always succumb to problems of informational asymmetry (moral hazard, adverse selection) Ironically, this is something that the "smart contracts" powering some future development of Web 3.0 might eventually solve. By making it possible to verifiably put real-world money behind one's assertions and trust assessments, these problems are significantly reduced.

I think I'm misunderstanding. Wouldn't this just make us trust the people with the most money?

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#235
post #214

To me the biggest difference between the "old" internet and current web is the advertising. It is not just the adds that are so much more prevalent, the web sites are designed to be visually appealing and that detracts from any content that might be there. "Old" internet had information and links to other information. "New" internet is all about facade with little content, just a title here, picture there, short vide…

I want a search engine that penalizes results by the amount of advertising on the page. :)

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very interesting that you describe a system which points people to web content they would like and yet you do not intend to collect data on these visitors. Or did I misunderstand? Wouldn't you need to "get to know" your visitors / customers / users before you are able to show them sites they will like? Also- I applaud you on the way you plan on serving ads. I do know that there are mechanism by which one can se…

Thanks! Yup, you bring up some good points. In the usual senses, approaches of getting to know users , essentially I don't want to do that: (a) Users can regard uses of such data as a threat to, compromise with, and an invasion of privacy -- an important term but ill defined and with possible negative emotional reactions. (b) E.g., what a user did for the past month going deep into the NFL does not mean that they wan…

This sounds extremely interesting and something I personally would love to try! Keep us posted on the progress of this project!

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#237
Today's internet is largely dominated by topics and people who maximize for marginal superficial engagement. You probably won't ever have the experience of a MajorBBS sysop breaking into your session when you're in the middle of mass downloading their mounted CD content (because the disc in the drive 2 feet away from them hasn't stopped spinning for hours), trying to exploit a bug in a door game, or bruteforcing their membership payment system. That's the meaningfully deep intimacy that's missing today.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#238

Today's internet is largely dominated by topics and people who maximize for marginal superficial engagement. You probably won't ever have the experience of a MajorBBS sysop breaking into your session when you're in the middle of mass downloading their mounted CD content (because the disc in the drive 2 feet away from them hasn't stopped spinning for hours), trying to exploit a bug in a door game, or bruteforcing thei…

This is part of why I've loved running my .com webserver from my home desktop for the last 20+ years. I can see the blinking (and hear, and feel the vibration of) what's going on and insert in custom messages to the directory listing or other pages to talk to visitors. They can talk back by appending "/@say/Their message here." to any URL.

I do miss the old days when you could run an open netcat on a popular port and every now and then get actual messages from people exploring the internet (burried under automated scanner attempts to collect banner version strings of course).

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#239
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now. My company kubelt.com is fixing this.

Your white paper isn't loading for me. Is there somewhere else I can read it?

How's this?

http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmNfXy5uCQjEWabnAsvJJPGkKNc6wSZu9M9w2cNx...

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#240
This is wishful thinking. The demographics of the internet have changed so much that you will NEVER get that 'old' back. You may get an imitation or evolution of it, but it will never return in full.

The size of social media now is so gargantuan that almost every single member you get in an independent community will have been molded by it in some way, which is very different to how the webcultures of the day functioned.

My experience running a small community post social media explosion, is that most newcomers want to treat it like Twitter - Personal Edition. They want to engage in recreational outrage. They want to be obsessed with America-centered identity politics and put down other people for not joining 'their' side.

It's a far cry from the types of people I once met online. There is no sense of "The internet is not real life.", because, for so many of them, their internet handle is their real life identity, and any joke against it is a strike against their moral fabric and an attack on their very being.

Post reply on HN