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Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

jarredsumner.com

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Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#101

Post by slothtrop »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #65
kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

I doubt StumbleUpon would be able to take off in the same form today - it installed a browser toolbar, collected a profile of your interests, and collected your up/downvotes to fed them all to an opaque algorithm that took you to the next random page. Who knows where that data went. Could we come up with a privacy-preserving equivalent to stumbleupon today?

At inception it was just a website that redirected you. There are variations of this created all the time but centered around essays and journalism. It would be trivial to create what is basically a glorified copy of SU, but no one cares enough to do it. Or more accurately, they already exist and we collectively don't care enough to notice.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#102

Post by solarkraft »

notriddle wrote: post #85
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt StumbleUpon would be able to take off in the same form today - it installed a browser toolbar, collected a profile of your interests, and collected your up/downvotes to fed them all to an opaque algorithm that took you to the next random page. Who knows where that data went. Could we come up with a privacy-preserving equivalent to stumbleupon today?

Firefox’s Pocket recommendations took a good approach. The browser downloads a big daily file with “potential recommendations”, then filters it at the client side. The big downside was that, because it was turned on by default, a whole bunch of people who didn’t actually want it had it foisted upon them, so it got a very bad reputation right out the gate. Right algorithm, bad execution.

I actually really like Pocket's recommendations, but yeah, the way it's all forced on you it's basically an ad. That's pretty much why I feel like I have to boycott it despite liking the product. It's such a Mozilla move to take something nice and turn it bad for no good reason.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#103

Post by solarkraft »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #40

All the fun and weird stuff is still around, it just typically doesn't SEO well and doesn't show up on Google, and is too long-tail to show up on popularity-based algorithms like those of Reddit or Facebook. I've spent the last year or so building tools and algorithms specifically to dig up "fun and weird". It's still there: https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

Awesome. I think there's a huge need for a search engine filtering out commercial content. It's basically just all spam.

Recently I wanted to find information on hacking a device I had obtained - but of course any search query I could throw at search engines only yielded ways to buy it or low-effort reviews. I tried marginalia but it seems like the index wasn't quite large enough for my purpose yet.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#104

Post by joshmanders »

NoGravitas wrote: post #46
ren_engineer wrote: post #22

most people are boring/normal by definition and the internet is now mainstream. The internet used to be filled with a pretty weird subset of the general population but now that is drowned out by the masses. The old school internet still exists to some degree but you are going to have to look harder to find where the weird people are at and most the people claiming they want the "weird" internet back would probably co…

> most people are boring/normal by definition and the internet is now mainstream. The internet used to be filled with a pretty weird subset of the general population but now that is drowned out by the masses. That doesn't explain MySpace, though. Extremely mainstream/mass-oriented, but still fun and weird, while it lasted.

MySpace really wasn't that weird, they just had a bug that allowed people to express themselves with code and decided to leave it.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#105

Post by ConstantVigil »

hbn wrote: post #78
kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

Here's a site I like to link whenever this discussion comes up (not associated): https://wiby.me I love hopping in and hitting the "surprise me" every once in a while, and reading some obscure webpage written by an actual person with a passion for a subject. In the past I've seen a site dedicated to the soundtrack for a film series (I can't remember which), not even necessarily streaming the soundtrack or something,…

Got this link:

https://mebious.neocities.org/Layer/Wierd.html

It's a Thought Experiments Lain website

P.S. There absolutely is definitely going to be sound coming through speakers. Fair heads up.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#106

Post by tinsmith »

low_common wrote: post #97
kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

It's called TikTok. The internet evolved dude.

"Evolved" is not the word I would use. As the Internet was already showing signs of being twisted by its own mythos in the 1990's, there was plenty of then-obvious opportunity that resulted in the type of profit-driven curation we see today. I remember the Internet then, but I feel a lot of people allow the lense of nostalgia to twist it into something far more wild and pure than it actually was.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#107

Post by marginalia_nu »

solarkraft wrote: post #103
marginalia_nu wrote: post #40

All the fun and weird stuff is still around, it just typically doesn't SEO well and doesn't show up on Google, and is too long-tail to show up on popularity-based algorithms like those of Reddit or Facebook. I've spent the last year or so building tools and algorithms specifically to dig up "fun and weird". It's still there: https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

Awesome. I think there's a huge need for a search engine filtering out commercial content. It's basically just all spam. Recently I wanted to find information on hacking a device I had obtained - but of course any search query I could throw at search engines only yielded ways to buy it or low-effort reviews. I tried marginalia but it seems like the index wasn't quite large enough for my purpose yet.

May well be that what you were looking for is in the index. My algorithms have a lot of potential for improvement. Right now they only really work well for broad topical searches. They are also entirely blind to some fairly rich websites, such as certain types of forums.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#109

Post by kevstev »

amelius wrote: post #10

> Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? Etiquette. For example, humor is frowned upon on some forums (HN included).

Any forum that does not frown upon it ends up with a bunch of low effort rehashed posts by people who don't know enough to actually discuss the topic at hand. This dilutes an interesting conversation at best, and at worst just makes the signal/noise ratio so low that people with knowledge on the topic get drowned out for the lols and eventually stop contributing. Its nice that HN is an island away from that.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#110

Post by RajT88 »

kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

Definitely check out:

https://neocities.org/

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