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

The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

cheapskatesguide.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–409 of 409 posts

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#401

Post by idiotsecant »

agentultra wrote: post #394
idiotsecant wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Regardless of their intentions this is a bad idea and deserves every line of criticism it receives. That's a fair criticism, even if I don't agree with it. I don't think it's possible to imagine a world where consensus is shared widely enough that 'mutually assured destruction' of the financial network prevents transaction censorship, particularly when zero knowledge based networks allow validation of network transa…

> particularly when zero knowledge based networks allow validation of network transactions without knowledge of who is transacting, what transaction is taking place, or when it might occur. Sounds great if you want to buy things law enforcement would be interested in tracking down. > Those things seem important. Understatement of the year. > Imagine a world where the people ruled by a government have some say in whet…

>But giving power to a handful of rich people and asking them to make monetary policy is an oligarchy and it's not a good idea.

Oh geez, we should probably stop doing that then.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#402

Post by agentultra »

idiotsecant wrote: post #401
agentultra wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> particularly when zero knowledge based networks allow validation of network transactions without knowledge of who is transacting, what transaction is taking place, or when it might occur. Sounds great if you want to buy things law enforcement would be interested in tracking down. > Those things seem important. Understatement of the year. > Imagine a world where the people ruled by a government have some say in whet…

>But giving power to a handful of rich people and asking them to make monetary policy is an oligarchy and it's not a good idea. Oh geez, we should probably stop doing that then.

Agreed.

This is what I mean about giving a bunch of programmers/developers the power to choose new forms of governance/financial infrastructure.

These are social structures that affect everyone and shouldn't be given to developers no matter how well-meaning they are.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#403

Post by Nebasuke »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #317
jabbany wrote: post #32

I feel like this article doesn't address the reason why people moved away from the "old" Internet --- most people only care about their _content_ not the particular technology that backs it. In the old times, you could only host content if you were really good with the technology. The people who had websites were people who knew how to set up and run a web server, and to compose the HTML content that was being served…

> In the old times, you could only host content if you were really good with the technology. The people who had websites were people who knew how to set up and run a web server, and to compose the HTML content that was being served. I don't see what's particularly difficult with hosting a static or mostly-static site, and why you'd have to be really good with it (many early content creators weren't). With Apache shar…

I think you're still missing OP's point. Sure, using ftp/sftp or scp is pretty easy for a software engineer, or technology enthusiast. However, that doesn't mean a content creator is happy to learn it, since as OP said, they care about the content not the actual tech. If they have a choice between using something that requires scp and writing HTML versus a graphic environment that is WYSIWYG, then the choice will very likely be the latter.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#405

Post by HeckFeck »

godshatter wrote: post #388
HeckFeck wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussions would last days on the old phpBB boards. There wasn't that same pressure to spend all day on the same website. You'd make your post and visit every few days. This encouraged effort and reflection. With reddit and other modern platforms, if it doesn't happen in the same 12 hours then it's old news.

Even with the relatively fast-moving ones you could still check in later and just quote a previous entry. Discussions tended to be deeper because of the format, less prone to quick little flurries of discussions that petered out once they were downvoted or not upvoted. Speaking of which, I don't remember any kind of upvoting of comments. The users on the board might show special icons if they were a mod and it usuall…

Not to mention the customisation and level of commitment that went into your forum persona. There were signatures, user bars, and yes ranks that rewarded commitment with the number of posts rather than magical internet points. Compare that with the sparse stylings of reddit, this site, or social media profiles.

There were certainly conflicts and power-tripping moderators on those boards, but on balance I don't think the downsides outweighed the upsides. If anything, the conflict just made the sense of community more real. Being a regular carried with it a sense of obligation.

I have revisited the surviving boards from my past, most are limping on, but none of the regulars I remembered were to be found.

I still hold a vague hope that the old threaded bulletin boards might be revived some day.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#406

Post by rambambram »

superkuh wrote: post #360
rambambram wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment method is so nice. Is there a reason you don't use a textarea for visitors to enter the text? Is your current method better against spambots?

It is a bit atypical because I wanted a purely static comment system for my static site. Using nginx to just log certain matching URL types to a custom log file was way safer and easier to maintain than anything written in a dynamic language accepting arbitrary internet input. I eventually adapted this approach to receiving webmentions as well and in that context I provide textarea input for webmention response URLs.…

Thanks for explaining. I'm in the process of collecting interesting websites, either as a bookmark, but better yet, as an RSS feed. I can't seem to find any feed on your website!?

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#407

Post by aeturnum »

qwertox wrote: post #292
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…

The moment you are forced to install WhatsApp because it is the way the community decided to communicate about the topic for which the group was created, instead of just signing up to a site self-hosted by a member via phpBB or some other forum software, you'll know what this is about. Now I'm granting information (IP-Address, rough location with it, content of the group) to Facebook without having the slightest desi…

To me, when communities choose a managed platform that didn't exist on the old internet, I assume that community would have just died if the managed platform didn't exist. It has never been easier or cheaper to run a phpBB instance than it is right now.

That is what I mean when I say we did not lose the old internet - it's more available to us than ever, but people choose not to use it. Like...it is not "lost," it's unpopular. I agree with you about all the drawbacks of WhatsApp, but it sounds like your community doesn't.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#408

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

I'm suprised none of this article mentions Starlink. It's the most dangerous development of our generation. Since it is so technologically advanced, no one will be able to compete.

Additionally, since Elon is the dictator of spaceX and has a long history of bowing to oppresive regimes demands (See his China factory/ Data rights promised on cars produced), Elon will sell the internet to the highest bidder.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#409

Post by throwhauser »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #43
throwhauser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a small website cope with GDPR compliance though? The rules that sprang up to constrain the social-media behemoths seem onerous for anyone but them to comply with.

By not collecting data it has no need for, and not passing that data on to third parties? By providing an ability to delete any user account, and for editing any personal information? By not using EBCDIC to store said information? Are you making this more complicated than it needs to be?

Days late and this will probably go unread by anyone, but further evidence that GDPR compliance is complicated, and it's difficult to avoid fines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30135264 "GDPR penalty for passing on of IP address to Google by using Google Fonts"

It's absolutely true that using Google Fonts will cause a user's IP to be shared with Google, and that this is a violation of the GDPR. But having to review content at this level of detail is burdensome for individuals or small organizations putting anything onto the internet.

Post reply on HN