Alive internet theory

We need to bring back something like the MySpace era, I think.

I think it’s underrated how much devices, tools, and a handful of companies contribute to the current stage. Everybody wants to monetize consumers’ inability to do things on their own, developers’ potential to make money with their product and get locked in ($$$), and funnel people into things. But at the same time, that’s pretty much the only way anybody has been able to consistently get paid and keep up with technology by making software. It’s just very hard to get unstuck when your primary computer is a phone that is basically impossible to use as anything but a pacifier for the mind, and every platform wants to keep you from discovering anything outside of it.

I’m hopeful that better tools, AI, open source, and normalizing rewarding helpful people and things on the Internet will bring us back to what it could have been. Why is there literally nowhere to go anymore that doesn’t feel abandoned or like marketing slop? Maybe we’ll have to login with real names to access what comes after that, but maybe it won’t be so bad if we get to decide for ourselves how/what we do with it.

Go back to internet in 1999... There weren't a lot of text boxes to type into that got your content out. It required a bit of work (html, so not a lot) to get something out there!

Much like an amusement park with a sign that says "You must be at least this tall ----" the old internet was "You must be at least this smart/motivated".

Discoverability was also harder. Much much harder. Even if you did publish it might not ever be found, or seen, or used.

Today typing in a text box, and adding to a conversation (like this one) that someone else is going to read changed where the bar is.

To that end there are still plenty of focused communities that are less tribal, less emotional, than your average social media post. These remain great sources of not only information but community as well.

I find the places focused around work (like HN) and my hobbies to be the most interesting and engaging -- less "critical" and more thoughtful.

A similar idea, but without the timeline idea and with YouTube videos instead of archive.org was this:

YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views (astronaut.io)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20432772

1362 points by monort on July 14, 2019 | 239 comments

I still like that one, maybe it appeals to more people here because the UI is more polished, and the video selection criteria work really well.

Although it also has the feel of seeing stuff that you're not meant to see sometimes.

It has an almost meditative feel to me, I like it.

Last time I opened it, for example, I saw a video of an old man playing a guitar, lots of hobby sports matches, and videos of private celebrations etc

Didn't encounter any NSFW stuff, but it's probably possible as far as YouTube can't prevent it, so if you must be 100% sure, you probably shouldn't open it.