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Omegle 2009-2023

omegle.com

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that the "magical period" seems to be determined by your age. For me, the internet has already lost its magic by the time the mid 2000s came around, well before Omegle came out in 2009. For me, the magical period was the early 90s, when I was growing up. In 15 years, are people going to be talking about the current internet as the time when the magic was there? It seems more about the magic of c…

This is an interesting idea. For me the magical period of the internet was also the nineties to mid-naughts. But I'm not sure. It doesn't seem entirely age-relative to me. It seems like something changed. I really have no way to say for sure. In fact, I was recently talking to someone a couple decades or so younger about similar topics and he indeed seemed to have more of the age-relative view. I plan on talking to h…

Non-technical, non-idealistic, non-visionary (pick two of three) people starting putting glossy red ribbons on websites with pink lettering and called it Web 2.0.

A lot of monumentally good things have come from the last ~20 years of technological change, but the Internet breaking out into something mediocre people could exploit has done damage. And that’s a range that encompasses everything from minimally qualified marketing consultants to people drifting by on MBAs to (sorry) serial entrepreneurs who focus more on the launch than the idea.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#172
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also would comport with the explanation that the Internet just gets worse and worse. Will be interesting to see if kids who grew up with TikTok et al. will, as adults, view it as affectionately as we view our childhood form of the Internet. I do think there's something to be said of an overall trend toward more consumption, less production.

Anyone who thinks the internet ‘just get’s worse’ never had a full Usenet feed in the 90’s. shudder

I don't mean "just gets worse" as in it gets worse on every dimension :)

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#173
post #18

I don't know the whole story, but this seems very genuine. It echoes a sentiment I imagine many people my age feel, where the magic of the early internet we witnessed during our coming of age feels threatened. I feel for him, and hope he's able to move onto other projects which aren't as stressful.

I find it interesting that the "magical period" seems to be determined by your age. For me, the internet has already lost its magic by the time the mid 2000s came around, well before Omegle came out in 2009. For me, the magical period was the early 90s, when I was growing up. In 15 years, are people going to be talking about the current internet as the time when the magic was there? It seems more about the magic of c…

This is a common sentiment echoed regarding many different topics across the human experience, so I want to, for the sake of discussion, try and articulate exactly what are the two sides of this scale that might be worth debating. David Putnam defined "intra-" and "intercohort" like this in Bowling Alone.

> Because generational change will be an important theme in our story, we should pause briefly here to consider how social change and generational change are interrelated. As a matter of simple accounting, any social change—from the rise of rap music to the decline of newspapers—is always produced by some combination of two very different processes. The first is for many individuals to change their tastes and habits in a single direction simultaneously. This sort of social change can occur quickly and be reversed just as quickly. If large numbers of Americans, young and old, fall in love with sport utility vehicles, as they did in the 1990s, the automotive marketplace can be quickly transformed, and it can be transformed in a different direction just as quickly. Sociologists sometimes call this type of change “intracohort,” because the change is detectable within each age cohort.

> The second sort of social change is slower, more subtle, and harder to reverse. If different generations have different tastes or habits, the social physiology of birth and death will eventually transform society, even if no individual ever changes. Much of the change in sexual mores over the last several decades has been of this sort. Relatively few adults changed their views about morality, and most of those who did actually became more conservative. In the aggregate, however, American attitudes toward premarital sex, for example, have been radically liberalized over the last several decades, because a generation with stricter beliefs was gradually replaced by a later generation with more relaxed norms. Sociologists call this type of change “intercohort,” because the change is detectable only across different age groups. Precisely because the rhythm of generational change is slower paced, it is more nearly inexorable.

I almost want to say that you're arguing internet disappointment (perhaps "perceived enshittification") is a predictable, generational intracohort phenomenon that applies to _all_ familiar aspects of one's life and not, conversely, an intercohort phenomenon through which generational attitudes remain constant, and the world changes around us.

On second thought, I don't think this is the right dichotomy to codify the common sentiment you've expressed. If somebody more learned happens by, please assist.

Edit: I think the term I am looking for is "Age-period-cohort analysis (APC analysis)," which I know nothing about.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#174

It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestring operation. Platforms with an army of lawyers can surely fend lawsuits like this off without batting an eye. Apparently Omegle doesn't have an army of lawyers.

> It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestring operation. Platforms with an army of lawyers can surely fend lawsuits like this off without batting an eye.

Platforms with an army of lawyers would never greenlight Omegle's basic behavior, to start with.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#175
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be exactly what the EFF and ACLU were for.

Regardless of any arguments about legitimacy, the optics of the EFF and ACLU defending Omegle against a child sex abuse victim are horrible. They need to raise funds from donors and having to explain that they fought against an individual abuse victim seems like the kind of position they would want to avoid. What I imagine they would do is fight against any overzealous legislation some politician tries to throw toget…

The ACLU speaks up for the rights of murderers and rapists that we don't like, because we don't want the system to be able to abrogate the rights of politically inconvenient people that the powers that be don't like. Like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. The ACLU and the EFF aren't about optics, but the underlying rule of law. We are better than a mob with pitchforks, even when we really don't like the perpetrator.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#176
post #18

I don't know the whole story, but this seems very genuine. It echoes a sentiment I imagine many people my age feel, where the magic of the early internet we witnessed during our coming of age feels threatened. I feel for him, and hope he's able to move onto other projects which aren't as stressful.

I find it interesting that the "magical period" seems to be determined by your age. For me, the internet has already lost its magic by the time the mid 2000s came around, well before Omegle came out in 2009. For me, the magical period was the early 90s, when I was growing up. In 15 years, are people going to be talking about the current internet as the time when the magic was there? It seems more about the magic of c…

Back then you could post to Craigslist for an anonymous hookup and play poker online for money.

Now the Match Group owns all the dating websites and successfully shittified them. Social media in general has been basically a big loss, with Reddit charging for API access since they don't want to lose revenues, Youtube trying to block adblockers, Twitter promoting Russian propaganda

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#177
Amazing. This post is 1 hour old and Wikipedia is already updated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omegle

"Omegle (/oʊˈmɛɡəl/[1]) was a free online chat website that allowed users to socialize with others without the need to register. The service randomly paired users in one-on-one chat sessions where they would chat anonymously using the names "You" and "Stranger". It operated from 2009 to 2023."

...

"On November 8, 2023, K-Brooks posted an announcement describing the challenges of running the site, and the ultimate decision to suspend the service. Challenges listed was online exploitation of children and attacks on communication services. K-Brooks concluded that his decision revolved around internet misuse and asked users to consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to combat misuse."

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#178

> But it became popular almost instantly after launch, and grew organically from there, reaching millions of daily users. The law of big numbers dictate that if there’s even a tiny chance of a catastrophic event it has close to 100% probability of happening if n is just large enough (in the case of millions of daily users, probably multiple catastrophic events per day). This kind of asymmetrical risk is very hard to…

I am absolutely certain people die hitting their head while at paid ice skating rinks. I'm amazed they haven't been sued into oblivion to where helmets are required to be worn.

So it seems like we do have SOME semblance of understanding risk vs reward.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that the "magical period" seems to be determined by your age. For me, the internet has already lost its magic by the time the mid 2000s came around, well before Omegle came out in 2009. For me, the magical period was the early 90s, when I was growing up. In 15 years, are people going to be talking about the current internet as the time when the magic was there? It seems more about the magic of c…

Also would comport with the explanation that the Internet just gets worse and worse. Will be interesting to see if kids who grew up with TikTok et al. will, as adults, view it as affectionately as we view our childhood form of the Internet. I do think there's something to be said of an overall trend toward more consumption, less production.

> there's something to be said of an overall trend toward more consumption, less production

I think this couldn't be further from the truth. You could argue that the production has been heavily centralized, but I think today more than ever we see kids in their early teens making videos on YouTube/TikTok, etc. It's different from other people's childhoods where you'd make geocities website or customize your myspace page or write blogs but it's still production nonetheless.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#180
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So car manufacturers need to stop making cars because someone might drive drunk? Kitchen knife manufacturers need to somehow prevent their products being used as weapons? This line of thinking is appropriate to a degree, but not really all that useful. Many products can be abused, and there's no feasible way to prevent that abuse.

Seems to me there is an obvious qualitative difference between a company that manufacturers cars or kitchen knives and a company that creates a service that uses random matchmaking to repeatedly introduce a serial pedophile to unsuspecting underage victims.

Sure, people _can_ abuse any service, this seems like a service that wasn’t just ripe for abuse, it was essentially perfectly designed to enable it. Moreover in this case there absolutely appears to be numerous feasible ways to have headed off that particular avenue of abuse.

This is the same ludicrously weak argument that is constantly and erroneously applied to guns… neither a car nor a kitchen knife are primarily (much less exclusively) instruments of harm, guns are. Well, turns out, so are random matchmaking services that link adult users with children and let them view each other, and that appears kind of obvious in hindsight.

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