The fun has been optimized out of the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#171

Post by fidotron » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

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…

It's almost preferable for sites to die than for them to be captured by the various ideological extremes that it seems necessary for them to subscribe to these days.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#172

Post by randomNumber7 » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

nibbleyou wrote: post #63

munificent wrote: post #53

I have a pet theory that much of what we're seeing culturally is that the 90s and early 2000s (at least in the US) was a window of time that offered a sense of safety and surplus. 9/11 was extremely culturally disruptive, but aside from that, for many in the US, it felt like there was "enough to go around". That environment breeds a lot of creativity, innovation, whimsy, and doing things for their own sake. But that…

I too have felt the same around me. There is this lack of faith in the institutions now, feeling of distrust. Someone on HN called this the era of shamelessness and I kind of agree to it. The top has gotten shameless and the people at the bottom are trying to scrabble whatever they can to become one of them so that they can escape this hellhole that has been created.

Definitely the fish stinks from the head.

I'm also a bit confused about how the people on the top think this will play out.

A long time ago there was a french saying "noblesse oblige", or the german pendant "Wohlstand verpflichtet".

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#173

Post by anal_reactor » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC

It's the normies. Any group that grows larger starts losing its initial focus, and starts being a vague mass of undefined humans. As the internet grew larger and more accessible to everyone, it lost its initial focus. Same reason why a house party with your friends is more fun than a ceremony of 200 people you don't know.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#174

Post by scelerat » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

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

as someone who laments the loss of spaces and pastimes that once brought people together -- bowling alleys, dance halls, pubs, movie houses, etc. -- to work from home, home entertainment and especially anything and everything online, I keep hoping for some kind of reversal.

Maybe the day is getting closer when anything and everything internet-related is so drenched in uncanny artifice and extractionary intention that people will yearn for imperfect, multidimensional reality, and feel like the best thing they can do with their time is walk through the park with a friend.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#175

Post by bakugo » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

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.

The statement "[thing] is worse now than it was X years ago" is not something that can only be true at a single point in time.

What if [thing] is just contiguously getting worse? What if that statement has always been true regardless of when it's been said?

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#176

Post by pesus » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

chrisallick wrote: post #75

disagree... get claude code and start writing your own apps. its incredibly liberating. im back in the early 00s actually enjoying my computer again not just using it as a terminal to bullshit corp websites. when you start making your own stuff, you end up on the best parts of the internet discussing with people who you miss from when you enjoyed the web.

Getting Claude Code is the opposite of writing your own apps.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#177

Post by bronson » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

DivingForGold wrote: post #64

jonhohle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the fun things “on the internet” are mostly still possible, it’s just the bulk of things we do now are not fun and main companies aren’t quirky risk takers but the oil/train/steel barons of our day. In the past few years I’ve done serveral of the things on your list in earnest and they are all easier to do today (specifically technical things) than they were 25 years ago (except maybe writing with a pen). Edit t…

Retired with substantial savings, refitting my 40 year old Hobie Cat 18, heading to the beach to spend more time with the dolphins and seagulls. ... and any interesting humans that I meet walking the beach.

Perfect OK Boomer response. If this is parody then I salute you! So good.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#178

Post by bakugo » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #22

No, it's not! If you don't like the super-monetized over-optimized AI-generated walled garden we've-got-you-hooked experience — just don't participate in it and do your own thing. Start your own blog. Without ads, not to be "monetized", just for the fun of it. Write for yourself, not for "engagement". Do your thing.

What does this accomplish? You could always write some words on a paper and then throw that paper into a fire, you don't need the internet to do that.

The whole appeal of the internet was that you could write about some random niche thing you liked and reliably find other people who liked the same thing. It was never about screaming into a void or otherwise "doing things for yourself". It sucks now specifically because whatever you "do for yourself" is now far less likely to be seen by anyone else who cares than it has ever been before.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#179

Post by dgellow » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

joenot443 wrote: post #21

I think we just got older. People are still having a blast online, but they’re mostly kids or teenagers. Garrys Mod got replaced by Roblox, forums got replaced by Discord, blogs got replaced by vlogs. There’s still lots of fun and community still to be found online, people wouldn’t spend so much time on it if there wasn’t.

It’s true but things did change meaningfully. Before you could read forums discussions, mailing lists threads going for weeks or months on a topic. The content wasn’t optimized, it was between some people chatting/debating without the expectation of a larger audience. Same for blog. Not to say the quality was always great (blog comment sections were notoriously extremely low quality, I spent way too much time having the dumbest exchanges there) but you had some interesting things to search and look for. All current platforms (not HN) are full of cropped Twitter posts with cynical commentary that you consume in a few seconds or minutes (if you read the comment) before you scroll to the next one. Even if you go to smaller subreddit the discussions are dominated by whatever is the latest thing someone said on some other platform (still so much of Reddit is made of cropped twitter screenshots…), there is very limited actual engagement with the content. No interaction between whatever is posted (very likely out of context) and the original author. Virtually nobody ever interact with a discussion slightly older than a few hours.

Vlogs and discord content cannot be searched and found through serendipity. How are you supposed to discover those discussions?

I don’t think people spend that much time online because they have fun to be honest

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#180

Post by Melatonic » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

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.

Kagi Small Web !!