Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

old.sage.moe

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 66 posts

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#11

Post by blantonl »

bagels wrote: post #9
sigg3 wrote: post #4

> > Geocitites > Oh yes, the 90's was so much better... Yes they were, because geocities didn't control your search results and did not force you to donate 10 seconds to some creepily targeted ad before serving any multimedia experience. I'm not going to say technology was better, nobody misses Realmedia, but the internet was more like a street than a mall. You could look at some weird art or look at some interesting…

You don't remember intrusive popup ads that took over the whole screen?

How about the pop-under ads that sat back there behind your browser just waiting to shock you with something stupid when you closed your browser window. Good times.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#12

Post by GingerMidas »

Hjkgt009 wrote: post #6
AnEro wrote: post #3

It is interesting to see that every time there has been another layer of commercialization on the internet everyone thinks it was better before. Linking a 4chan archive on here is a uuhh bold move, I think its a fun snapshot of the time but still

I read mostly 2 web sites that look the same: HN and /pol/. Orange, text based, almost anonymous.

[dead]

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#13

Post by rumey »

sigg3 wrote: post #4

> > Geocitites > Oh yes, the 90's was so much better... Yes they were, because geocities didn't control your search results and did not force you to donate 10 seconds to some creepily targeted ad before serving any multimedia experience. I'm not going to say technology was better, nobody misses Realmedia, but the internet was more like a street than a mall. You could look at some weird art or look at some interesting…

> Yes they were, because geocities didn't control your search results and did not force you to donate 10 seconds to some creepily targeted ad before serving any multimedia experience.

What? Do you remember webrings? How absolutely riddled with shit-tier spam they were? Geocities drove those.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#14

Post by isoprophlex »

tenpies wrote: post #7
Hjkgt009 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read mostly 2 web sites that look the same: HN and /pol/. Orange, text based, almost anonymous.

But to my knowledge, no one has ever been able to triforce on HN. It's like a perpetual summer.

▲

▲ ▲

Easy, see?

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#15

Post by highwaylights »

bagels wrote: post #9
sigg3 wrote: post #4

> > Geocitites > Oh yes, the 90's was so much better... Yes they were, because geocities didn't control your search results and did not force you to donate 10 seconds to some creepily targeted ad before serving any multimedia experience. I'm not going to say technology was better, nobody misses Realmedia, but the internet was more like a street than a mall. You could look at some weird art or look at some interesting…

You don't remember intrusive popup ads that took over the whole screen?

Yes, and I miss them every day.

The ads were sleazy and brazen and right in your face trying to dragnet as many people as possible into buying something 99.999% had no interest in. Not like now, where massive dossiers are built on you automatically and you're tracked all over the internet by ad companies regardless of the steps you take as an individual to convince yourself you have privacy (like VPN/Private Relay/Incognito/Tor).

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#16

Post by basch »

karaterobot wrote: post #5

The purpose of posting this may be to reiterate that old canard about "twenty years ago, people were saying what we're saying now, therefore it isn't true." If not, I apologize for assuming so. In any case, my reading is, it was true in 2007, and it is much worse now. The predictions about centralization were incorrect only in the names of some of the players, and in not having the benefit of knowing about the role o…

If anything, it shows that the blogspam repost problem still hasnt been solved. Still no browser extension that finds the original and replaces all rehosts with it.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#18

Post by blackhaz »

sigg3 wrote: post #4

> > Geocitites > Oh yes, the 90's was so much better... Yes they were, because geocities didn't control your search results and did not force you to donate 10 seconds to some creepily targeted ad before serving any multimedia experience. I'm not going to say technology was better, nobody misses Realmedia, but the internet was more like a street than a mall. You could look at some weird art or look at some interesting…

Just recently my wife came back home telling me about some tablet computer she has never ever seen before. I think she has googled for it on her phone. What do you know - my Facebook showed a few ads of that device - on that day. I've never heard about it before. I never searched for it and I never searched for a tablet even - I don't use them. Is this now the new normality - palantiring through databases? Is it OK for Google to leak data to Facebook?

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#20

Post by pfannkuchen »

karaterobot wrote: post #5

The purpose of posting this may be to reiterate that old canard about "twenty years ago, people were saying what we're saying now, therefore it isn't true." If not, I apologize for assuming so. In any case, my reading is, it was true in 2007, and it is much worse now. The predictions about centralization were incorrect only in the names of some of the players, and in not having the benefit of knowing about the role o…

Relatedly, some old quote from the Romans or Greeks is often brought up where someone laments youth behavior as lazy and immoral, and it’s referenced as proof that old(er) people always say that so it doesn’t mean anything.

However, isn’t it possible that they were on a downward trajectory, and we are too? And that at other points in time, not referenced, old(er) people may have felt differently?

Post reply on HN