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The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

muddy.jprs.me

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Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#131

Post by dhosek »

dale_glass wrote: post #59
boh wrote: post #30

This take is always bizarre to me. You're not talking about the internet, you're talking about the websites you choose to use. There are alternatives for every single website/service that you don't like. They're often exactly like the Internet of yore in that they're not as streamlined, niche and have less people using it (these are aspects of the "fun" internet that people forget). The internet is a bunch of network…

> This take is always bizarre to me. You're not talking about the internet, you're talking about the websites you choose to use. There are alternatives for every single website/service that you don't like. Yeah, the problem is that a lot of those are effectively dead, subsumed by Reddit and Facebook. I've sometimes dug up still existing sites from the 2000s I used to visit, and the results are typically depressing. S…

Indeed. I was trying to sell a loft bed a couple years ago and Craigslist is essentially dead for that sort of thing now, killed by Facebook (I deleted my account in 2021 and I have to say that eschewing that corner of the internet has been a net positive for my mental health). The only replies I got were obvious scams (“I love this! I’ll pay you $100 more than you’re asking for it!”)

Some forums are still alive, although not with the vigor that they had twenty years ago (talkbass.com is one that springs to mind).

I maintain a blog, but I doubt I have many readers (or any). I made a deliberate choice to not put any sort of analytics on the site so that I won’t be tempted to obsess about whether anyone actually visits. Some of the individual blogs that I know don’t get much readership that I read via RSS, I make a point of commenting on the rare posts to encourage the authors to write more. It doesn’t seem to make much difference although I’m sure they appreciate the positive feedback.

A lot of the delightful weirdness is gone. All the tilde sites with hand-made HTML and lots of flashing gifs and blink tags may have been tacky, but they were fun. I don’t get the kind of pleasure from most websites that I did back in the days of worst of the net which often surfaced delightful strange things that were completely unfiltered.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#132

Post by dgellow »

joe_mamba wrote: post #124
simianparrot wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs to pay for any of that

Says who? Please define your definition of the word "needs" here in this context. With this logic, nobody also "needs" to buy a Ford F-250 Super Duty, a MacBook Pro M5, an RTX 5090, a recreational boat, drink Starbucks daily, etc if your definition of "needs" is just limited to day survival meaning just providing food and shelter but nothing more, and yet people buy them anyway, because it's entertainment, not becaus…

What a stretch to go from cars and luxury laptop to daily survival

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#134

Post by randomNumber7 »

I still enjoy the things that are not overtaken by big tech (although it isn't much). Anna's archive and streaming niche movies.

I miss the old forums the most. The group mind on Reddit is just regression to the mean.

The rest I tried to cut back as much as possible for my own mental health.

I can't get of YouTube completly even though most of the time I hate myself after doom scrolling. Sometimes I still find genuinely interesting stuff there.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#135

Post by suzzer99 »

Robdel12 wrote: post #106
jonas21 wrote: post #14

> I’ve been mourning the old Internet over the past year or two... As a kid on the Web from the early 2000s through the mid-2010s, we knew we were living through something special. It's funny because I knew lots of people in the early 2000s who were mourning the loss of the "old Internet" then. Kind of like how everyone thinks the music they listened to as a teenager is the best and it's all been downhill since.

Reminds me of how every single person you meet here in Austin also mourns the Austin they loved from 10 years ago. This could be someone mourning 2015, 2005, 1995, or 1985…

At my first Burning Man in 1998, I met a guy in his 3rd year who told me, "It's changed, man."

Burning Man may have peaked by now. But looking back, most would agree it still had a lot of good years left in it in 1998.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#136

Post by sevenzero »

the__alchemist wrote: post #52
functionmouse wrote: post #2

I agree, but it's been said by all... make homebrew software for an old Nintendo console pick up cross stitching or weaving make an independent film with a friend; use stuff from your kitchen as props find a borderline functional instrument at your local thrift store write a 1 page short story in pen it's not enough anymore to merely criticize this bad time we're having

I concur! Explore the big, bold world outside the internet. Or, on the internet, stop spending your valuable time on bottom-feeder content like medium articles, facebook, twitter/bluesky, rant blogs, news websites etc.

>bottom-feeder content

So 99% of posts on Hackernews, got it.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#137

Post by bradley13 »

functionmouse wrote: post #2

I agree, but it's been said by all... make homebrew software for an old Nintendo console pick up cross stitching or weaving make an independent film with a friend; use stuff from your kitchen as props find a borderline functional instrument at your local thrift store write a 1 page short story in pen it's not enough anymore to merely criticize this bad time we're having

This. Yes, the mass internet is curated, created and censored. Usenet is a distant memory. But some changes are positive.

I recently retired. I've programmed for 50 years, both for work and for fun. My son asked: so what's your project? I had to think about it, and I've decided to learn GPU programming - something completely new to me.

With AI as a tutor, this will be massively easier than at any time in the past. In some ways, the state of AI now is reminiscent of the state of the internet 25 years ago.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#138

Post by dgellow »

armchairhacker wrote: post #67
fragmede wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you balance that with the need for money to afford things in life though? There's a lot of things I could go do if I didn't have to think about bills to pay.

How did they in the 1990s/2000s/2010s?

Based on my lived experience people were complaining the same way

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#139

Post by ctippett »

dale_glass wrote: post #59
boh wrote: post #30

This take is always bizarre to me. You're not talking about the internet, you're talking about the websites you choose to use. There are alternatives for every single website/service that you don't like. They're often exactly like the Internet of yore in that they're not as streamlined, niche and have less people using it (these are aspects of the "fun" internet that people forget). The internet is a bunch of network…

> This take is always bizarre to me. You're not talking about the internet, you're talking about the websites you choose to use. There are alternatives for every single website/service that you don't like. Yeah, the problem is that a lot of those are effectively dead, subsumed by Reddit and Facebook. I've sometimes dug up still existing sites from the 2000s I used to visit, and the results are typically depressing. S…

* The site still exists but has been taken over by Tapatalk, snuffing out what little remained of the original community.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#140

Post by trashb »

kilroy123 wrote: post #104

I run an entire site and newsletter dedicated to showing fun things from across the web. I promise you this is not true. It's just all buried under a mountain of crap now. https://randomdailyurls.com

I also like to press "surprise me..." on https://wiby.me/

There is a lot of fun stuff still there, but a corporate search engine might not point you to it.

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