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ICQ will stop working from June 26

icq.com

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Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#511

Post by Karrot_Kream »

skydhash wrote: post #480
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just don't take your phone out? I always read these threads and think that the folks here probably have issues disconnecting and so they're longing for a world where social pressures forced disconnection. I still frequently don't check my socials until after work or after a long social activity. I'm upfront with my contacts about that too, and most of my friends are like me. I only monitor my phone constantly if I…

I use my phone mostly as a PDA. Quick searches, reading Hacker News and RSS, Chatting (very infrequently), calls, and utilities. No socials apps, no games. And I have an ereader and a digital audio player for books and music.

I have plenty of social apps but they're pretty much on perma-mute except for folks like my partner or my parents who have "priority access" to my attention. During work hours work gets access, but they go on mute after hours + 2 (since I generally work a bit late.) I have a work pager setup on my phone if someone really needs me for work. Works out fine for me FWIW. I'll shitpost when I have time/brain space but leave them alone for days or even weeks if I'm occupied enough.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#512

Post by acka »

Fond memories of uni, standing in front of a dorm with dozens of students using ICQ inside. Sounds as if someone had just unloaded a truckload of Teletubbies in the yard, "Uh-Oh"'s coming from every direction in a hilarious cacophony.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#514

Post by I_am_uncreative »

RajT88 wrote: post #481
dkga wrote: post #470

I will forever treasure my ICQ memories. The sounds it made. The moving image when it was connecting. Listening in Winamp to one of only a few dozen possible songs that I had carefully downloaded. Being able to randomly connect to people you would filter. Yes, I want to talk to someone more or less my age but in Iceland. Or any other country. But most of all, the feeling of being connected. As a teenager in the autis…

First thought: I had assumed ICQ was long dead. It seemed impossible anything from that era could still be running. IRC is of course, through the grace of an ecosystem, but it is a tiny fraction of what it was. Second thought: how do people randomly connect to talk now? Comments sections mostly? I have long ago stopped seeking new connections of any variety.

I met one of my best friends randomly on Reddit, so there.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#515

Post by ewzimm »

mulmen wrote: post #508
RajT88 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First thought: I had assumed ICQ was long dead. It seemed impossible anything from that era could still be running. IRC is of course, through the grace of an ecosystem, but it is a tiny fraction of what it was. Second thought: how do people randomly connect to talk now? Comments sections mostly? I have long ago stopped seeking new connections of any variety.

Is IRC a tiny fraction of what it was? As a percentage of internet traffic sure, but has the population of IRC users actually declined?

I’m pretty sure IRC has continued to grow in obscurity, much like Gopher, which, last I checked, was also at an all-time peak and growing steadily but slowly.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#518

Post by jcurbo »

teajunky wrote: post #448
mathrawka wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mirabilis contacted you? I worked on some ICQ software in high school, and was the maintainer of large user base ICQ clone. I still own the domain: licq.org Never got a single job offer, guess they saw my code and went running away ;)

Thanks for licq. This was my favourite client.

Likewise, I used it for a while as well. I also used a console client named micq, good times.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#519

Post by prawn »

mike_hock wrote: post #391
101008 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started writing an essay about this topic. I am one of those nostalgics by the old internet. I thought it was the aesthetic (geocities, etc), but after giving it a lot of thought, that wasn't. It was that your life (all of us) was "offline by default". We lived offline and then we connect to the internet for a few minutes, hours, whatever. But you lived your life offline. We attended concerts, took photos, recorded…

You also had digital freedom and autonomy. You controlled how many ICQ accounts you had. Setting one up took a minute and cost nothing. You chose the client you used to connect with. Noobs used the official ICQ adware and you used some 1337 open source client on Linux that could handle both ICQ and Jabber. But you could talk to them on the same platform. Where are the alternative WhatsApp clients? Or iMessage? Or Tel…

The app (at least when I used it decades ago) didn’t recommend accounts to follow or insert junk in your list. That’s the key reason I resent all social media I use today.
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