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Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

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Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#271

Post by conductr »

nottorp wrote: post #268
conductr wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss old internet stuff to, but in a way I think it’s just morphed. First you have to look past the influencer/marketing cruft trying to pass as authentic but I find real great content is predominantly being created on YT and other video channels. The production value I see some amateur folks take is insane and has to be a massive hobby in of itself. Also have to just realize the web is now public transport where i…

> The production value I see some amateur folks take is insane and has to be a massive hobby in of itself. Doesn't YT share some ad revenue with you if you're over a certain amount of views? :)

Is it material for most? I’d bet it hardly offsets the investment in AV equipment as well as editing software. For a lot of people, learning video editing is path for content creation just like learning to code is/was for many others. To some degree, I’d venture they are in competition with each other. And code has more business value while video has broader appeal. So more so just pointing out how the trends have played out such that developers are not necessarily the “creators” of the experienced internet any more. They mostly just do the plumbing.

My YT watching tends to be around DIY stuff, how to, engineering and home/construction. These are people that in past would have made high quality blogs with tutorials but now just make videos. I’m consistently impressed by the storytelling and production value. Even if they technically receive an ad share I still think they’re amateur. There are a few that have crossed over into massive popularity and it’s probably significant but that’s not the norm. Even in the old days, people put ads on their tutorial pages and a lot of blogs so it’s no different, to me.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#272

Post by hbn »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #241
hbn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still something to be said about the fact that all the mainstream internet platforms don't really encourage much in terms of "internet creativity" outside of the tight boundaries that are allowed (uploading a video, writing text, posting a picture, etc) The fact that MySpace was mainstream and allowed for HTML/CSS hacking did exactly what the article said -- it tricked a generation of teenagers into learning…

The good thing about MySpace, which was arguably also its weakness to Facebook, was that you weren't forced to use a real name. You could create multiple accounts, multiple identities, let your freak flag fly. Facebook/Instagram are so tied to people's real lives that you don't just have to filter yourself, you basically have to construct a false happy life for public display.

That's the direction the internet has been moving in general, and naïve people are getting on-board with the corporate sales pitch that removing anonymity from the internet enables us to catch pedophiles or nazis or something.

Police state utopia!

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#273

Post by deepdmistry »

hbn wrote: post #78
kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

Here's a site I like to link whenever this discussion comes up (not associated): https://wiby.me I love hopping in and hitting the "surprise me" every once in a while, and reading some obscure webpage written by an actual person with a passion for a subject. In the past I've seen a site dedicated to the soundtrack for a film series (I can't remember which), not even necessarily streaming the soundtrack or something,…

This is awesome, i found a very simple dutch oven bread recipe.

Cant wait to try it.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#274

Post by TheLastStumbler »

XCSme wrote: post #265
TheLastStumbler wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at StumbleUpon at shutdown and for a few years before. I'm creating a single-purpose account to avoid doxxing myself on my main account. Here's a non-exhaustive list of things that killed SU. SU relied on individual human curators to discover worthy new web pages instead of trying to crawl the web in bulk. Our most passionate users, the people who would submit great new URLs, tag URLs, rate heavily, and curate…

Taking into account the technical limitations, couldn't SU simply link to/open the site in a new tab?

It was possible to open recommended pages in a new tab. This is one of the things we tried at StumbleUpon's quasi-successor, Mix. It was significantly less engaging for new users than having everything in one tab. Some people who had used the real StumbleUpon didn't just find it less engaging; they hated it and sent hate mail to make sure we knew. It was a distinctly inferior experience.

You can no longer deliver the full StumbleUpon experience through a web browser, at least not legally. The tightening technical constraints make it impossible to replicate what we could do 10 years ago. Of course now it's also harder for someone to enroll your machine in a botnet because you played a game, or steal your passwords because you installed a browser extension, so those things are to the better. But increasing attention to security and control also make it harder to offer "fun and weird" experiences of various kinds.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#275

Post by pixodaros »

Nasrudith wrote: post #247
vitaflo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has become a sellout. When I was growing up this was considered a bad thing. Today it’s a virtue.

Frankly it always struck me as kind of insane that it was considered a bad thing. Especially since the definition of selling out seemed to consist of any and everything while not being successful. Was it some hippie movement vestige or something?

The book "The Rebel Sell" points out that creating businesses and selling products was central to the American counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. The "Whole Earth Catalogue" was not a 'leave a penny, take a penny' dish!

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#276

Post by mattgreenrocks »

alexalx666 wrote: post #231
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #66

Don't sugar coat it. Call it what it really is: gentrification. 2000: creating content and fostering an online community in private was seen as super nerdy. 2022: binge watching TikTok in public and grown-ass adults fighting over Internet Points is "normal." And, yeah, the content is much worse. It's a lot of overly-socialized people taking care to say the things they should say so the great Algorithm gives them more…

What I did about it today is bookmarking some of the websites that were shared, I mean isnt it the same as in any century, now the difference is that you can have free access to good stuff

Increasingly, I see the value in archiving long-form content I like, because link rot is so pervasive. Maybe time to start using pinboard again.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#277

Post by pixodaros »

thibran wrote: post #59

> Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? Because everything is complicated now. To code your own website you have to learn hundreds of hours of web technologies. There is no clear way and a lot of old, now wrong, advice in old blog posts. This limits the creativity that can be expressed a lot and is probably the main reason why "everyone" is now using "platforms".

I created my static site with scripting, CSS, and HTML skills from the 1990s, an oughties Comp Sci degree, and w3cschools. HTML5 makes it scary easy to make a pretty site which works on a wide range of screens (no more full-width columns of black text on a white background!)

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#278

Post by standardly »

ayngg wrote: post #177
CamelCaseName wrote: post #44

Just look at one of the best platforms for "fun and weird" - YouTube. The algorithm aggressively promotes freshness (things posted in the past few hours for certain queries!) and 10+ minute long videos. Every algorithm change directly impacts what creators, create, because no one wants to put in a whole lot of work for something to never be seen. If, for example, the ideal format for a joke or video is 3 minutes, tha…

The internet has changed from communities of interest to communities of people who commoditize social interaction within those interests. On the surface they seem fairly close to actual communities but they incentivize different things which changes how the community operates and personally I think they don't provide many of the healthy benefits of communities while cultivating some pretty unhealthy behavior loops.

You just described Reddit, right?

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#279

Post by spaceprison »

hbn wrote: post #78
kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

Here's a site I like to link whenever this discussion comes up (not associated): https://wiby.me I love hopping in and hitting the "surprise me" every once in a while, and reading some obscure webpage written by an actual person with a passion for a subject. In the past I've seen a site dedicated to the soundtrack for a film series (I can't remember which), not even necessarily streaming the soundtrack or something,…

This is so great. I was just telling my son about the wonder of the old internet and how great stumbleupon was. Thanks for this.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#280

Post by funOtter »

kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

https://cloudhiker.net/
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