How the internet became shit
herman.bearblog.dev
How the internet became shit
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Re: How the internet became shit
#2I'm just confused about how the average person is supposed to navigate the internet. Is the assumption now that everybody knows about ad blocking plugins?
Re: How the internet became shit
#3I agree that adds not only are annoying but that companies that capture an audience first and then introduce adds are crowding out more sustainable companies that don’t rely on ads but maybe on subscriptions.
Anyhow, as the internet slides ever deeper, the small web gets more fun every day. Now people may not blog as we did in the ‘00, but boy, do we micro blog on nostr as if we just discovered twitter for the first time.
It seems someone invents something new every other week when I’m on Nostr. It helps to follow hundreds of people (to avoid the echo chamber effect). Ands it’s an open protocol so nobody can stop anybody from just trying out goofy stuff. I love it.
Re: How the internet became shit
#4I feel like this applies to more than just the internet.
New construction houses are crap quality. Restaurant food quality seems like it's gotten worse and much more expensive.
But yes Google is probably the best example of this...type in any shopping term and Google search basically turns into a more cluttered Amazon search result page.
Re: How the internet became shit
#5This feels more like an advertisement for bearblog than a meaningful critique. "Have you heard of enshittification? Well I guarantee my free product won't go that way. Sign up today!"
Re: How the internet became shit
#6When lamenting the "old Internet", a lot of people forget that the vast majority of the people creating content on it were gainfully employed with strong career security. Meaning that they didn't need to make money from their hobbyist online projects, so they didn't need to monetize it.
This is a lot different from today, where any sort of journalist/writer/artist/filmmaker is basically dependent on making content that sells ads or generates revenue, because their entire industries have gone online, or in many cases, been destroyed by the tech industry itself.
It makes me wonder if a sort of "basic income for Internet creators" would work. Instead of individuals trying to optimize their content for maximum income, it would instead work like this: if the group determines that you make great content, you get a small stipend monthly. There are no other expectations or optimization requirements, merely that you continue making the content. Ads are banned. It would be similar to the way tenure works at universities.
I doubt this would actually be successful organically, but it could work as a collective Kickstarter or nonprofit sort of thing.
Re: How the internet became shit
#7When lamenting the "old Internet", a lot of people forget that the vast majority of the people creating content on it were gainfully employed with strong career security. Meaning that they didn't need to make money from their hobbyist online projects, so they didn't need to monetize it. This is a lot different from today, where any sort of journalist/writer/artist/filmmaker is basically dependent on making content th…
> It makes me wonder if a sort of "basic income for Internet creators" would work. Instead of individuals trying to optimize their content for maximum income, it would instead work like this: if the group determines that you make great content, you get a small stipend monthly. There are no other expectations or optimization requirements, merely that you continue making the content
I think you invented Patreon.
Re: How the internet became shit
#8[flagged]
Re: How the internet became shit
#9When lamenting the "old Internet", a lot of people forget that the vast majority of the people creating content on it were gainfully employed with strong career security. Meaning that they didn't need to make money from their hobbyist online projects, so they didn't need to monetize it. This is a lot different from today, where any sort of journalist/writer/artist/filmmaker is basically dependent on making content th…
> It makes me wonder if a sort of "basic income for Internet creators" would work. Instead of individuals trying to optimize their content for maximum income, it would instead work like this: if the group determines that you make great content, you get a small stipend monthly. There are no other expectations or optimization requirements, merely that you continue making the content I think you invented Patreon.
[flagged]
Re: How the internet became shit
#10When lamenting the "old Internet", a lot of people forget that the vast majority of the people creating content on it were gainfully employed with strong career security. Meaning that they didn't need to make money from their hobbyist online projects, so they didn't need to monetize it. This is a lot different from today, where any sort of journalist/writer/artist/filmmaker is basically dependent on making content th…
> It makes me wonder if a sort of "basic income for Internet creators" would work. Instead of individuals trying to optimize their content for maximum income, it would instead work like this: if the group determines that you make great content, you get a small stipend monthly. There are no other expectations or optimization requirements, merely that you continue making the content I think you invented Patreon.
Yeah, but Patreon is still beholden to the individual-market optimizer model. I'm talking about a group, a collective, that deliberately funds stuff that is merely good content.
Maybe a collective Patreon-like "guild" would be a starting point.