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The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#221

Post by [deleted] »

akudha wrote: post #134
Biologist123 wrote: post #24

> People increasingly behave like addicts because addiction is the business model. I sense my internet addiction got a lot worse in recent years. I don’t use social media, but I consume news, blogs and newsletters - and comment threads - voraciously. I think the addiction began as soon as I started to work at a desk behind a computer which had internet access - 20+ years ago. Like putting an alcoholic to work behind…

The most dangerous part of this addiction is that it doesn't feel like addiction. Suppose we spend 4 hours in an afternoon consuming random content - starting somewhere on a Google search, landing on Wikipedia, end up reading dozens of articles on various topics in that 4 hours. Unlike alcohol or drugs, this is knowledge addiction - afterall, we learned about a bunch of things in those 4 hours, didn't we? We didn't s…

[deleted]

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#222

Post by JumpCrisscross »

AlexB138 wrote: post #155
noir_lord wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why historical education is so important (or just liking history as in my case), looked through the lens of history all of the current shit as bad as it is, is really nothing all that new either, the only constant is change after all. As the aphorism goes: History may not repeat but it sure does rhyme.

You're absolutely correct that history helps you see that none of this is new. However, is it better to be the person who sees the waterfall their boat is inevitably going to go over, or the person completely ignorant of it until it happens?

> see that none of this is new

But this is. This sort of violent partisanship that self ensconces around identity versus issues is exactly what tears apart democracies and republics.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#223

Post by nrr »

KronisLV wrote: post #159
Biologist123 wrote: post #24

> People increasingly behave like addicts because addiction is the business model. I sense my internet addiction got a lot worse in recent years. I don’t use social media, but I consume news, blogs and newsletters - and comment threads - voraciously. I think the addiction began as soon as I started to work at a desk behind a computer which had internet access - 20+ years ago. Like putting an alcoholic to work behind…

> I’d like out, but the dealers are on every corner. Since the industry stops for noone (and you kinda have to keep learning in software dev) and due to the state of the economy it feels like one big rat race to me, I don't foresee that sort of outcome for myself. I can easily imagine how lazing in the sun in Italy or someplace like that (if the hot summers nowadays don't fuck that up), going swimming and eating heal…

> and you kinda have to keep learning in software dev

It's less the constant need to keep learning that bothers me (my formal credentials involve a requirement to undertake a minimum of 30 hours of continuing education annually) than it is that the industry has focused on vendor-specific implementations of various concepts.

I've built a lot of control planes like Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry (and its accompanying BOSH) over my career as a system administrator, but hiring managers and staff engineers these days specifically want Kubernetes experience.

Likewise, I've built a lot of control planes like what backs AWS's EC2 (including multi-tenant accounting and quotas and MAC/RBAC!), but hiring managers and staff engineers specifically want production experience with EC2 (and, seemingly, the broader AWS ecosystem, which is nonetheless approachable for someone who has production distributed systems experience).

At my most tinfoil hat, I want to say that this is blatantly in the interest of setting up a consulting industry around these vendor solutions, and it creates something of a monopsony situation for someone with my skillset.

My formal credentials are as an actuary, so I can at least go back to pursuing claim severity modeling and pricing out when something has a hiccup as a primary responsibility, but this focus is almost certainly a deskilling move otherwise.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#224

Post by psma_egeliaa »

TFNA wrote: post #73
Biologist123 wrote: post #24

> People increasingly behave like addicts because addiction is the business model. I sense my internet addiction got a lot worse in recent years. I don’t use social media, but I consume news, blogs and newsletters - and comment threads - voraciously. I think the addiction began as soon as I started to work at a desk behind a computer which had internet access - 20+ years ago. Like putting an alcoholic to work behind…

Internet addiction in the early millennium wasn't so destructive, because so much internet content was somehow related to quality interaction with other people. You could meet cool new people (even occasionally IRL friends) from forums and blogs, and they were a hub for discussion for real-life communities like music-band fandom or travel subcultures. Besides the deleterious nature of engagement-maximizing social med…

> so much internet content was somehow related to quality interaction with other people

That still exists. Except now it's not in IRC or BBSes but in Discord "servers" instead.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#225

Post by inigyou »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #212

Now? I’m sorry but I’m sick to death of all this rose tinted glasses crap about the history of the Internet I got on the Internet in 1993 and it is always been a cesspit of bullshit. You could easily find child pornography online in the 90s and there were all kinds of scams constantly being tried

Both those things are still true today

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#226

Post by beloch »

It's almost as if a group of CEO's got together and asked each other, "How can we monetize the time our employees spend off work?". The answer was, apparently, to reduce purchasing-power adjusted pay to the point where hobbies, like the internet, must generate income for people if they want to afford basic necessities. Hence, stagnant wages and the rise of side-hustle economy. Now everybody goes back to work after they get home.

If you buy this (wildly speculative and unsupported) theory, then the enshittification of the Internet is only natural. The best way to ruin a hobby is to turn it into a job. The internet was not perfect, but a better place back when people did it as a fun hobby with no expectation of income. Now, everything has to produce financial gain for somebody. Kids still make the same videos of themselves kicking each other in the nuts, but now they have to remind you to like and subscribe in order to fund future tomfoolery.

Perhaps what we have is not a problem born of a new technology (i.e. The internet) so much as a societal problem resulting from social regress. We're no longer dividing the pie up equitably enough, so people now feel squeezed and have become utterly obsessed with money. As it turns out, that makes them less fun.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#227

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #189
Biologist123 wrote: post #24

> People increasingly behave like addicts because addiction is the business model. I sense my internet addiction got a lot worse in recent years. I don’t use social media, but I consume news, blogs and newsletters - and comment threads - voraciously. I think the addiction began as soon as I started to work at a desk behind a computer which had internet access - 20+ years ago. Like putting an alcoholic to work behind…

Just focus on putting your phone in a draw for as long as you can, leave a stopwatch on it running so you can see how long you have left it - it will be short to start with but with practice you’ll regain the ability to live without consuming information.

>Just focus on putting your phone in a draw for as long as you can,

I've had a smartphone since the iPhone 4, I think. And while I find it useful, I honestly don't understand how anyone can be addicted to it. Mostly stays in my pocket. If I need navigation, it's out in the car while I find the address. I use it for instant messaging for my wife and kids (rarely the phone call anymore... don't know the last time I answered a call, it's all robot scammers and telemarketers).

The screen's not big enough to read anything, not large enough to watch anything. The sorts of games I enjoyed as a kid just aren't available. Sometimes I'll have an ebook on it, that's ok (it's nearly as big as a paperback used to be), but remembering to load one onto my phone before I got somewhere I'll be waiting doesn't always work out.

I can spend hours online, if I'm not careful. At home, in front of the big monitor. How does anyone get addicted on a tiny little phone screen, with dumbed down apps? I can't even look at pages on Firefox on the phone, without adblock it's just abysmal.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#228

Post by stackbutterflow »

inigyou wrote: post #208
paxys wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t use social media You are using social media right now.

And it's exactly as addictive as Twitter.

Exactly. Whether hn is a social platform is a hot topic for some, but in terms of addictiveness it's on the same level as reddit. And there's no algorithm and sub categories.

But every day there's basically the same type of threads, with the same predictable discussions and you know just by the title and the amount of comments on a thread that you'll get you dose of dopamine whether you're pro or anti any topic that is regularly discussed.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#230

Post by inigyou »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #152

This is a little premature - I'm about a month away from a really good launch date, but the sentiment here is too good a match to miss... A long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I set up my first webserver. In those halcyon days you had to email CERN to get your website added to the list of websites in the world; a list people downloaded as the sum total of what the web was and where they could visit. Thing…

You call it a "Reddit alternative" but that's not really how the world works. People don't go out looking for Reddit-like sites, stumble across Reddit and sign up. People are just going about their business, find Reddit, and eventually feel pressured to sign up so they can post, comment or vote. The funnel starts with people stumbling across engagement-worthy content on your site, which only exists and is findable if it exists and is findable.
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