Using the internet like it's 1999 • Hacker News Board

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#161

Post by Tade0 » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

dormento wrote: post #160

One thing that i just realized is i don't know exactly when things got bad. I remember the 90s when we had to "go" online, when the digital was apart from the analog and we kept online and offline separate. I remember simpler sites, not as many ads, I remember a time before "feeds". However, for the life of me I can't remember exactly when it started to suck. It might be that I was busy with other things in life, but…

> However, for the life of me I can't remember exactly when it started to suck.

Whatever the date, it's tightly coupled with the explosion of internet-capable mobile devices.

My personal pick would be 2012, because that's when the Samsung Galaxy S3 came out and outsold its predecessor more than twofold.

Coincidentally that's when the small agency I was working for at the time started offering making pages look on mobile devices.

In terms of units the market for mobile devices peaked just four years later.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#162

Post by techteach00 » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

Only possible without the smartphone. That's the device that destroyed the internet. Thanks a lot Apple

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#163

Post by bitterhop » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

vunderba wrote: post #4

If it were 1999, most people would still be browsing the web on their US Robotics 56k modem (at best). This page is about 1 MB of assets (500kb gzip compressed if your browser supported it) , so it would have taken at least a minute just to finish loading.

Oh how much I wanted those super expensive ISDN lines...

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#164

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

jazzypants wrote: post #154

vovanidze wrote: post #141

the nostalgia for 1999 isnt really about missing dial up or basic html, its about mourning the loss of user agency. back then the browser actually worked for you. today the client is basically a hostile enviroment running megabytes of third party js just to track telemetry. going back to gopher or text-only browsers feels like admitting defeat tbh. we can still build incredibly fast modern apps if we just stop treati…

In 1999, hostile websites would pop up endless new windows full of advertisements that you were powerless to stop unless you simply held down "ALT+F4" or "CTRL+ALT+DEL". Part of Mozilla Firefox's appeal is that it came with a pop-up blocker. [0] Do you know anything about the Browser Wars? People literally had to put up images telling you which browser to use if you wanted to actually experience their website the way…

[deleted]

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#165

Post by retired » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

dormento wrote: post #160

One thing that i just realized is i don't know exactly when things got bad. I remember the 90s when we had to "go" online, when the digital was apart from the analog and we kept online and offline separate. I remember simpler sites, not as many ads, I remember a time before "feeds". However, for the life of me I can't remember exactly when it started to suck. It might be that I was busy with other things in life, but…

Cookie wall was a big shift. I noticed that since the introduction of the cookie wall, websites now have about 3 to 4 modals that I have to click away before I can start interacting with the website. Typically it is the cookie wall I have to reject first through a secondary modal, then something about a newsletter, then the paywall and finally I have to hit ignore on the "Do you want to login with Google" on the top-right.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#166

Post by zugi » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

jakedata wrote: post #51

zugi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fark is farking great! Though its old-school HTML doesn't flow so well on mobile. Can we get the best of 1999 with the best of 2026? Probably not...

m.fark.com looks pretty good on my phone.

You sir or ma'am have greatly improved my quality of life!

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#167

Post by NetOpWibby » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #108

NetOpWibby wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the current web is sick and will never get better. I propose building a new stack, without ICANN and friends (Verisign is raising .com prices yet again). I'm planning to build it[1] at some point, just working on other foundational stuff at the moment. Cozy corners, webrings, and Gemini/Gopher is where I see the spirit of the old web alive and well. --- [1]: https://dap.sh

Yggdrasil works like that. No bitcoin, no bullshit, your own tunneled ipv6.

Yggdrasil is on my list of things to try! I need to delve into it more tbh.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#168

Post by fasterik » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

I've come to the conclusion that nostalgia is almost never about the objective quality of something. It's about the associations we make between a certain time in our lives and the media/technology that surrounded us at the time. It's also filtered through selective memory, emphasizing the positive while ignoring the negative.

We're all afraid of dying and we all wish we were 25 years younger. That's how I translate nostalgia when I read it. By any objective metric, the world is better than it's ever been, technology is better than it's ever been, and it's all continuing to get better.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#169

Post by NetOpWibby » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

keepamovin wrote: post #151

NetOpWibby wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People clamoring for the old web are almost never talking about slow speeds or XHTML, they're talking about the FEELING of being on the web.

YES! You were there. Takes one to see one. :) Truly, I think you’ve over the target here. I think it's more than just being young. It was the transition from an analog life to a 'cosmic' one. We are the bridge generation! I remember waiting for a Zine or a Phrack manifest, or for an image to waterfall down the screen. It wasn't 'inefficient'—it was a frontier. People comparing the 'load times' and 'inconveniences' ar…

The "sense of boundless horizon" you speak of is literally what I feel when I play the Megaman Battle Network series or listen to the internet music. That feeling drives me when nothing else does.

I love your Windows 98½ project, that dialup sounds so good to me haha!

I'm finally at a point where I can see a viable path towards a spatial internet ("metaverse" has been ruined by Facebook). I can't wait to start building it.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#170

Post by Narishma » Fri, Apr 24, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

Ferret7446 wrote: post #56

Loughla wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a lot more careful about clicking things when it took a full minute to load. Now I know that it'll be open in less than a second and I can leave immediately if I need to, so there's WAY less thinking beforehand.

There are quite a few sites that take more than a second to load even now. Should be a war crime, but alas

Youtube and Gmail take ages to load for me. Patreon is another one.