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The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

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Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#321

Post by bottled_poe »

aeturnum wrote: post #171

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…

Sorry if I’m interpreting inaccurately, but this seems nostalgic, anecdotal and ignorant of the gravity of social network effects. Certainly, communities are more online and connected than ever, but the claim from the article of “old internet” coming back don’t seem substantiated here.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#322

Post by taurusnoises »

kevstev wrote: post #200
alphachloride wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this is not a 101. Exposing port 80, figuring out a static external IP, or setting up DDNS, and https all need more hand-holding I think.

If I was talking to my mom sure. But were talking on HN here, clicking around your routers web UI shouldn't be too difficult for anyone here to figure out. And honestly if you can't figure that out you shouldn't be exposing your stuff to the internet anyway, you will become a part of a botnet in short order. Setting up Apache properly is a much bigger PITA for anything other than a static html use IMHO.

I wanna thank you for the time you took to lay it out. And, I'm gonna need to look up everything you mentioned, cuz it's more like a 301 for me not 101. I don't even know what a port 80 is!

In the 90s I taught myself html to build out stuff, but never had to host anything.

Apache? I've heard it a thousand times. Couldn't tell you what it was.

So, yeah. Assume I'm yr mom.

This is also a good example of why web2 came to be. Cuz people like me have zero idea what's being talked about.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#323

Post by pedrocr »

skinkestek wrote: post #270
root_axis wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is an apt analogy either because it still suggests that something was lost, when that's not the case, rather the internet grew in new places that have come to dwarf the places that came before. The overwhelming majority of users on the new internet didn't exist on the old internet.

> I don't think this is an apt analogy either because it still suggests that something was lost Here we disagree and you are wrong ;-) Of all the old forum lore most of it is lost for the overwhelming majority of internet users. Some copies exist on old drives here and there, some exist in the internet archive but nothing has been migrated to newer platforms. Mailing lists were for a long time conserved by Google but…

There's a reasonable argument that we're actually in a golden age of forums. Subreddits have allowed many more niche communities than before and even traditional style forums have prospered in plenty of cases. There is definitely migration to newer platforms like Discourse and others.

If you think about it with an archivist mindset there are definitely plenty that was lost to time. But that will happen just from natural churn, even if the total is still healthy. And in this case as far as I can tell it is healthy. People talk about all kinds of things in hosted forums of various kinds. I'd be very surprised if the total forum traffic on the internet hasn't been on a steady rise forever, it just rises slower than the total.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#324

Post by tmalsburg2 »

nils-m-holm wrote: post #278
toto444 wrote: post #274

How many of you mourning the old internet frequent neocities or have their own personal website ? I don't think the the answer is 'a lot'. Everyone on HN complains about everything being turned into a business but everyone also wants to create their own start up and turn it into a unicorn.

Anecdatum: I have maintained my web site since 1995 and have my own domain since 1999 ( http://t3x.org ). I have never had a "business" nor have I dreamt about big money. Give me back the old internet anytime!

Love your book covers and your book Lisp From Nothing was a fun read. Thank you.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#325

Post by taurusnoises »

It'd be amazing if some HNers who vibe with this article would teach online courses that teach people who have no idea how to "decentralized" their web life by running servers and their own sites (not nec on the blockchain). There's a lot of us out there who need the very basics, and would love to participate!

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#326

Post by jollybean »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #44
aluminussoma wrote: post #31

The Internet today feels like a big box strip mall in suburbia. While visiting my home town, I looked for a local, independent hardware store. There was only Home Depot and Lowe's. Then I realize how few independent businesses were left. On the Internet, you have Google, Amazon, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter. Much of the good content is hidden in their secret gardens (Facebook, Twitter, and increasingly Reddit). Discover…

> Discovery needs to be reimagined. Google search directs traffic but now everyone has a SEO manager to get their site to the top. If we want to see the Internet like before, original content needs to be prioritized over content like Pinterest, without needing to do anything special. Discoverability is a big part of why the independent web is struggling. And it's not just big tech's fault, people are really bad at li…

Discovery is an existential issue for the net now, it wasn't back when it started, because there are 100000x more places to go these days.

The old web was simple, but it was also small.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#327

Post by bregma »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #156
wolpoli wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barrier of entry was actually lower than that. We didn't need to stand up an Apache server. We could just sign up for a Geocities/Xoom/Tripod account and upload HTML or use the built in site editor to create content. Somewhere along the way, people stopped building well organized sites and started producing chronologically organized writings and content. These chronologically organized articles and content have d…

> The barrier of entry was actually lower than that. We didn't need to stand up an Apache server. We could just sign up for a Geocities/Xoom/Tripod account and upload HTML or use the built in site editor to create content. Reading this thread feels like everyone is anchored to whatever methods were popular at the time they entered the internet as being the peak. The BBS people think it was all downhill after BBS decl…

It's all been downhill ever since the eternal September started.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#328

Post by unsungNovelty »

executesorder66 wrote: post #316
yakireev wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. My personal experience does not match that. There was a time (2010-2012 or so where I used to live) when communities were migrating from older "forums" to new and shiny "social networks" - and inevitably ceasing to be communities. One of these communities was niche enough (…

Is there any reason a subreddit wouldn't work for that community? Or is that not "forumy" enough? I'm genuinely curious.

Apart from privacy concerns like Twitter and Reddit sharing your data with FB (Maybe they share with Google too, not entirely sure), you create a healthier community in a forum than Reddit, Twitter etc.

This would be different if you are in a subreddit for a niche topic, sure. But there are higher chances of creating healthy online interactions in Forums than a subreddit. You meet with regulars more often. Knowledge transfer is better cos you know the skill levels of different people based on your interactions and experiences. This is opposite cos in a subreddit depending on the topic. There is a high amount of irregular folks. This means you have no idea how to rate the interactions than to take them on face value. These are all small but important things that are important when it comes to a community.

Think of forums like your neighborhood. You participate and nurture it. You know most of them and the rate of new people are less than you can catch up with the pace among other things.

PS: These are some of my thoughts, people have different ideas and opinions on forums.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#330

Post by account42 »

ahefner wrote: post #252
jchw wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that the "old" internet is not totally dead, but in my case communities I used to be in and even a couple I had direct involvement in were gutted because people left in favor of participating in communities via websites like Twitter. IRC channels I was in dwindled in numbers, draining instead to massive Discord servers. The thing is, the "old" Internet was always somewhat anemic compared to the "new" Inter…

What's the deal with these wiki sites that seem to consist entirely of user generated content, but absolutely bury it under mountains of ads? How do these places exist, and why do people continue to contribute to them?

One reason they continue to exist is because Google will often rank the add-laden Wikia site higher than the respective community-organized wiki.
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