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Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#131

Post by return1 »

lousken wrote: post #125
return1 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously you dont remember the gifs, the flash , the unblocked popups/popunders/popovers/hijackers etc? It was far worse back then but the signal to noise was better. The reason: lack of social media which is 99.999999% absolute informational garbage.

No, didn't have flash or java installed before XP; and as I said below - gifs sure, no don't remember any popups on czech sites i visited.

All these technologies existed in webpages in the 90s. There were a lot of popups too, it's kind of a meme https://www.techly.com.au/2018/02/14/techly-explains-fascina...

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#132

Post by lousken »

return1 wrote: post #131
lousken wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, didn't have flash or java installed before XP; and as I said below - gifs sure, no don't remember any popups on czech sites i visited.

All these technologies existed in webpages in the 90s. There were a lot of popups too, it's kind of a meme https://www.techly.com.au/2018/02/14/techly-explains-fascina...

I'm not denying that, i am just saying it wasn't my experience at the time. Also since I had to pay for every minute of connection I didn't really browse through various sites, I only connected to visit a specific site or do a specific thing.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#134

Post by tomjen3 »

mindcrime wrote: post #15

[a deleted post said] I miss the trajectory. Many things were exciting in the '90s, but many things didn't turn out so well. This is pretty much the same way I feel. I'm not sure exactly when things changed, but there is definitely a sense that we went off the rails somewhere along the way. Some time ago there was excitement, optimism, and a sense of boundless opportunity, associated with the Internet and tech in gen…

I have seen that chance here on HN, which is honestly one of my biggest gribes with the site, everything that is positive is destroyed completely. You can see that with the commentors who used to be found here often (patio11 especially) who are now only around for a few specific threads (but somehow magically there when the threads call for it).

However I am sure it wasn't 9/11 that did it, because I wasn't really on the internet then, and HN didn't exist.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#135

Post by tomjen3 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #21
suff wrote: post #4

Like when the 'off' button meant 'off'? Yeah, I do.

I miss buttons in general.

My appartment has shared laundry facilities. It finally died, but I still miss the previous laundry machine, which had these big physical buttons that had this satisfying clock when you pushed them in.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#136

Post by mindcrime »

twilight00 wrote: post #111
mindcrime wrote: post #15

[a deleted post said] I miss the trajectory. Many things were exciting in the '90s, but many things didn't turn out so well. This is pretty much the same way I feel. I'm not sure exactly when things changed, but there is definitely a sense that we went off the rails somewhere along the way. Some time ago there was excitement, optimism, and a sense of boundless opportunity, associated with the Internet and tech in gen…

I think 9/11/2001 was that turning point. Then the crash almost exactly 7 years later made things even worse. I can't speak for other countries, but both of these events were like a one-two punch to the gut socially, politically, and economically here in America, and we're still reeling.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure 9/11 was a contributing factor. Not sure it was the thing, but then again, there probably wasn't just one "thing" that caused all this. It seems like more of a sequence of things, some big, some little, spread out over time, and gradually skewing the zeitgeist to a more negative, pessimistic, unpleasant outlook.

In regards to tech and the Internet in particular, I think the Snowden revelations and the PRISM stuff was a key moment, in terms of changing the perception of the Internet. After broad public awareness of ubiquitous online surveillance became a thing, the Internet lost some of it luster and became more threatening and less welcoming.

More recently, the Cambridge Analytica stuff, along with all the major data breaches over the past few years, probably contributed to that sensation as well.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#137

Post by switch007 »

thought_alarm wrote: post #55

In 1995 I was making $6.75/hour as a line cook, and my combined rent, utilities, phone, and cable TV was $180/month, renting a large old house downtown with 6 other friends. Dial-up Unix shell/internet access was free through the university. I picked up an original 128k Mac and Mac Plus with 40 MB SCSI HD at a local thrift shop for $40, both of which I still own. A CD cost $25, a pack of cigarettes was $5, and pitche…

180/6.75 = 26.6 hours

I wonder how many hours are required in 2019?

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#138

Post by patio11 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #134
mindcrime wrote: post #15

[a deleted post said] I miss the trajectory. Many things were exciting in the '90s, but many things didn't turn out so well. This is pretty much the same way I feel. I'm not sure exactly when things changed, but there is definitely a sense that we went off the rails somewhere along the way. Some time ago there was excitement, optimism, and a sense of boundless opportunity, associated with the Internet and tech in gen…

I have seen that chance here on HN, which is honestly one of my biggest gribes with the site, everything that is positive is destroyed completely. You can see that with the commentors who used to be found here often (patio11 especially) who are now only around for a few specific threads (but somehow magically there when the threads call for it). However I am sure it wasn't 9/11 that did it, because I wasn't really on…

I think my HN participation is just a function of where I am in life right now, to be honest. (Sandwiched between a demanding job which uses a lot of the same cycles that HN used to use and having a young family.)

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#139

Post by kthejoker2 »

krapp wrote: post #122
return1 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously you dont remember the gifs, the flash , the unblocked popups/popunders/popovers/hijackers etc? It was far worse back then but the signal to noise was better. The reason: lack of social media which is 99.999999% absolute informational garbage.

>lack of social media which is 99.999999% absolute informational garbage. The purpose of social media isn't to provide "information," but to facilitate communication between people. Making jokes or discussing trivial matters which don't interest you personally, or not doing so in a way that maximizes information density, does not make it garbage.

What makes social media garbage is it takes every human cognitive bias and multiplies it by infinity, and offers very little virtue by way of compensation.

It is psychic damage entirely driven by the id.

It replaces expert advice and ombudsmen with popularity contests and groupthink.

It is a neverending reinforcement loop of your filter bubble.

It mainstreams every fringe movement - because social media uses attention as a key metric, it rewards controversy, outrage, and conspiracy.

It's a 24/7, infinite scale, effectively anonymous and entirely asymmetrical amalgam of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Kitty Genovese, Jonestown, Alfred Dreyfus, Jack Chick, Charles Mackay, the Hillsborough crush, 2 minute hate, the banality of evil, "a lie flies around the world before truth gets its boots on", cargo cults, suicide bombers, the Inquisition, Leon Festinger, "It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so", and 1000 other human failings.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#140

Post by kthejoker2 »

seventhtiger wrote: post #120

I think culture used to be more united. There were significant limitations in the channels for producing and consuming culture. Used to be, to get people to read your writing, you had to go through either the effort of printing and distribution, or you had to submit to some editorial selection and review. Then the only channel people had to consume it was to get a physical print of it. Now anyone can write anything a…

To be fair, the monoculture was almost exclusively white, Western, Judeo-Christian approved media. It created a giant tidal wave of conformity on which progress rose, but it drowned out a lot of other voices.

Always tradeoffs.

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