A retrospective of my time on the internet

Post by kemps4 » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

lordloki wrote: post #94

sanderjd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it does seem like there have been multiple distinct changes, rather than this just being an age-based phenomenon. I seem to be about a decade older than the OP, and I'd also say that the early '10s is when things got less fun. Although I dunno, I thought "web 2.0" was just hype (and thus bad) and that Facebook was ruining everything, and those were five to ten years before 2012. So maybe it's less of a spec…

It was the smartphone that completely ruined the internet. Once everyone was connected 24/7 it became the ultimate eternal September.

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

monknomo wrote: post #226

jerf wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more about us all being on platforms that value engagement and simply don't care if that "engagement" is people fighting with each other. The Internet always had whackjobs... in fact on a per capita basis I'd bet that in the early days we're praising as "we all got along" the whackjob ratio was higher than it is today and it has since regressed to the norm... but the systems structurally tended to dis…

ejecting jerks is something forums did better than social media, even if the definition of jerk varied widely and was forum-specific. I can't imagine a forum doing something like promoting the user with the most interacted with posts; they'd probably lock the thread and consider banning

Post by Terr_ » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

monknomo wrote: post #226

jerf wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more about us all being on platforms that value engagement and simply don't care if that "engagement" is people fighting with each other. The Internet always had whackjobs... in fact on a per capita basis I'd bet that in the early days we're praising as "we all got along" the whackjob ratio was higher than it is today and it has since regressed to the norm... but the systems structurally tended to dis…

ejecting jerks is something forums did better than social media, even if the definition of jerk varied widely and was forum-specific. I can't imagine a forum doing something like promoting the user with the most interacted with posts; they'd probably lock the thread and consider banning

Post by mghackerlady » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

someonebaggy wrote: post #247

1over137 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what non-web parts are left? email lists, usenet, gopher, etc. are deathly quiet.

Torrents? I think most of these things still exist, but as a tiny proportion of traffic, because total traffic grew so much while these old protocols shrank somewhat, but they are certainly still there. The focus is now on applications rather than protocols, that's the bigger difference. One uses Discord, or Slack, not IRC, because their centralised nature enables them to iterate much more rapidly (IRC has barely cha…

Post by darkwater » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

someonebaggy wrote: post #243

darkwater wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The original Eternal September is about a specific year, but it has become an evergreen concept for each younger generation: > The Internet was really cool when I started using it and everything felt new or novel, but it started going downhill later. And you can also replace "Internet" with any other concept and you will find a lot of people in their early 40s and over (sometimes even earlier) bitching about how ev…

I'm trying to avoid this feeling but how do I tell the difference between nostalgia and things actually getting worse?