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A retrospective of my time on the internet

cleberg.net

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Re: A retrospective of my time on the internet

#41

Post by smackeyacky »

Delphiza wrote: post #20
lizknope wrote: post #7

It looks like it starts with: >I was born in the late 1990s >2001: The Family Computer I was both in 1975 and my first experience with the Internet was in 1991 when I was 16. I thought it was amazing. There were Usenet forums for thousands of topics and places where nerds could talk about stuff from bands to TV shows to programming languages. There was no graphical World Wide Web (unless you worked at CERN) We had to…

I had the same weird feeling reading the post. Where OP was 'living there' in 2007, I was building sophisticated apps with big teams to do things build commercial insurance systems. I don't know whether I built the things that OP missed about the old days, or paved over the things that he used as a child. If there is one thing I miss about the Internet that I grew up with, it is the trust and self-policing. We were o…

I remember a lot of bad natured Usenet flame wars. I don’t think it’s worse now it’s just the volume got louder and things like reddit amplifying stupid to new lows. Easy enough to avoid.

Facebook and LinkedIn I would consider novel compared to usenet but it’s hard to tell the fakeness and bots from each other, or from static. Again, easy to avoid.

Re: A retrospective of my time on the internet

#42

Post by noja »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #18

On the flipside, I was able to purchase three albums in FLAC format, DRM free, from an obscure band that I thought wouldn't have a legitimate path to purchase. https://boomkat.com/artists/magic-lantern I also use Linux exclusively at home, with a paranoid-level of lists added to my pihole, so I don't see anywhere near as much friction as the average user.

> with a paranoid-level of lists added to my pihole

This is your regular reminder that many websites you are visiting are proxying your data to facebook for them. There is no host to block here.

Check out the Facebook Conversions API Gateway.

Re: A retrospective of my time on the internet

#43

Post by atemerev »

The "old web" is now darknets, like Tor or especially I2P. Everything fits. It requires some technical expertise to set up (particularly I2P). Slow downloads. No Javascript (usually disabled for safety reasons). Some content that will shock you at 30 exactly as the old internets content occasionally shocked you at 13. Intermittent connection. Anarchy. You can explore this world.

Re: A retrospective of my time on the internet

#44

Post by ajackfox »

This resonates: the Internet was such an interesting place to grow up in, though my experience may be a little before the author’s.

I miss the niche bespoke websites and forum communities of the years past, but there’s nothing holding us back from creating and maintaining spaces like that these days, aside from spam and AI slop. Some are still out there.

The shift is mainly attributable to lowering the bar to access as cellphones with browsers came on: it became such a valuable consumer platform, rather than a place for creators, hobbyists, and those with a nerdy curiosity to congregate.

I hope the pendulum swings back the other way someday, but I fear ‘dead internet theory’ may be the current endpoint of least resistance.

Re: A retrospective of my time on the internet

#48

Post by xnx »

Though I'm much (much) older, I was there at the start of TikTok and you can say about the same thing. It was weird and human and almost free from commercial influence in 2019. Now "creators" employ every type of psychological trick and deception to get views and engagement.
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