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Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

old.sage.moe

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Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#51

Post by pessimizer »

basch wrote: post #16
karaterobot wrote: post #5

The purpose of posting this may be to reiterate that old canard about "twenty years ago, people were saying what we're saying now, therefore it isn't true." If not, I apologize for assuming so. In any case, my reading is, it was true in 2007, and it is much worse now. The predictions about centralization were incorrect only in the names of some of the players, and in not having the benefit of knowing about the role o…

If anything, it shows that the blogspam repost problem still hasnt been solved. Still no browser extension that finds the original and replaces all rehosts with it.

> Still no browser extension that finds the original and replaces all rehosts with it.

You'd think that'd be a job for search engines, but they don't seem to care about the product.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#52

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

sigg3 wrote: post #4

> > Geocitites > Oh yes, the 90's was so much better... Yes they were, because geocities didn't control your search results and did not force you to donate 10 seconds to some creepily targeted ad before serving any multimedia experience. I'm not going to say technology was better, nobody misses Realmedia, but the internet was more like a street than a mall. You could look at some weird art or look at some interesting…

> I'm not going to say technology was better

The Internet was better but the technology was worse.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#53

Post by basch »

pessimizer wrote: post #51
basch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, it shows that the blogspam repost problem still hasnt been solved. Still no browser extension that finds the original and replaces all rehosts with it.

> Still no browser extension that finds the original and replaces all rehosts with it. You'd think that'd be a job for search engines, but they don't seem to care about the product.

No matter where I get linked from, Reddit, Facebook, an email, if nbc.com reposted an AP/Reuters story either verbatim or poorly summarized with no additional information, I just want to be sent to the AP/Reuters story.

Techmeme.com hand selects either the first or best source for each headline. Something community maintained like that, where any duplicate story redirects to the primary, unless it’s a follow up or editorialized comment that has actual substance.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#54

Post by pfannkuchen »

petsfed wrote: post #28
pfannkuchen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatedly, some old quote from the Romans or Greeks is often brought up where someone laments youth behavior as lazy and immoral, and it’s referenced as proof that old(er) people always say that so it doesn’t mean anything. However, isn’t it possible that they were on a downward trajectory, and we are too? And that at other points in time, not referenced, old(er) people may have felt differently?

Considering that the old quote is Cicero criticizing pre-dictator Julius Caesar for the way he wore his toga (and not, you know, all the things that Sulla might've put him on the Proscription Lists for), I'd argue its more that old people consistently criticize the wrong thing about young people, focusing on the superficial, rather than the substantive. EDIT because I forgot to add: This missing the mark is rarely be…

Actually, I am thinking of a different old quote:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

This could show that older people always think these things about younger people. Or, it is possible that the respective cultures were in a period of decadence both then and now, and that the views of older people are at least somewhat accurate or meaningful.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#55

Post by sirspacey »

majormajor wrote: post #39
blackhaz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just recently my wife came back home telling me about some tablet computer she has never ever seen before. I think she has googled for it on her phone. What do you know - my Facebook showed a few ads of that device - on that day. I've never heard about it before. I never searched for it and I never searched for a tablet even - I don't use them. Is this now the new normality - palantiring through databases? Is it OK f…

You and your wife's phones are almost certainly tied together in multiple databases that adtech companies (especially the quieter tiers below Google/FB themselves) maintain and sell. And then you get re-targeted for ads you or her see, or ads based on things you or her see (retargeting was a really big thing back when I was in the industry, since behavioral prediction wasn't quite living up to the hype - so just re-s…

Having worked with ad networks, publishers, and advertisers, it’s incredibly clear that ad targeting is barely this intelligent.

But the serendipity it can create is truly wild.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#56

Post by [deleted] »

sirspacey wrote: post #55
majormajor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and your wife's phones are almost certainly tied together in multiple databases that adtech companies (especially the quieter tiers below Google/FB themselves) maintain and sell. And then you get re-targeted for ads you or her see, or ads based on things you or her see (retargeting was a really big thing back when I was in the industry, since behavioral prediction wasn't quite living up to the hype - so just re-s…

Having worked with ad networks, publishers, and advertisers, it’s incredibly clear that ad targeting is barely this intelligent. But the serendipity it can create is truly wild.

[deleted]

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#57

Post by DoItToMe81 »

AnEro wrote: post #3

It is interesting to see that every time there has been another layer of commercialization on the internet everyone thinks it was better before. Linking a 4chan archive on here is a uuhh bold move, I think its a fun snapshot of the time but still

Less people pearl clutch over Chans than you think. Most of the shock is performative.

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#58

Post by Ekaros »

nmilo wrote: post #22
blackhaz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just recently my wife came back home telling me about some tablet computer she has never ever seen before. I think she has googled for it on her phone. What do you know - my Facebook showed a few ads of that device - on that day. I've never heard about it before. I never searched for it and I never searched for a tablet even - I don't use them. Is this now the new normality - palantiring through databases? Is it OK f…

I've always read comments like this and just assume it's confirmation bias on two levels: 1. Out of the 1000s of ads you see every day, at least one of them might coincidentally relate to something you talked about. You don't notice all the ads that are wildly irrelevant. 2. Even if you personally didn't have a hyper-relevant ad experience, out of the 1000s of HN readers that might comment a reply, one of them surely…

Co-worker posted to company chat that they had failed to make some payments and then had got phising mail for their bank. Wondering was this linked. Later someone pointed out that phising had come before those failures. So was completely unrelated in reality.

All the conspiracy theories out of the window...

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#59

Post by honzabe »

majormajor wrote: post #39
blackhaz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just recently my wife came back home telling me about some tablet computer she has never ever seen before. I think she has googled for it on her phone. What do you know - my Facebook showed a few ads of that device - on that day. I've never heard about it before. I never searched for it and I never searched for a tablet even - I don't use them. Is this now the new normality - palantiring through databases? Is it OK f…

You and your wife's phones are almost certainly tied together in multiple databases that adtech companies (especially the quieter tiers below Google/FB themselves) maintain and sell. And then you get re-targeted for ads you or her see, or ads based on things you or her see (retargeting was a really big thing back when I was in the industry, since behavioral prediction wasn't quite living up to the hype - so just re-s…

This is really interesting. I would buy a short book describing and explaining this privacy-related stuff the way you write about it.

But every time I read something like this, I am puzzled how they can have so much information and yet be so dumb. One example (but I could give you many): I like cycling and I subscribe to some cycling-related YouTube channels (Lanterne Rouge, Dylan Johnson - normal stuff, informative, bits of light humor now and then). YouTube keeps recommending me one cycling channel I absolutely hate - it is as if it was designed to piss me off. Sensationalist, negative, clickbaity titles, made up doping allegations every other post, throwing up emoticons in titles, creepy thumbnails with syringes and distorted faces. I never watch those videos, I clicked "do not recommend this channel" multiple times, now I just leave YouTube immediately every time this appears. And somehow, with all the data they have on me and all that sophisticated AI, they still have not figured it out. How? Any explanation?

Re: Have you noticed how much shit the internet has become now? (2007)

#60

Post by brewtide »

sircastor wrote: post #48
margalabargala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a much less malicious explanation here. If that tablet company had very recently begun an internet marketing campaign, across multiple ad networks, target approximately your demographic, then it's wholly reasonable that you and your wife would independently see ads for it.

An analogy to what you're suggesting is that this person and their wife each drove past the same bill board at different times. I think the thing that most people would really find tragic and scary is that we're all far more predictable and homogenous than we'd like to believe.

I've always made the statement to friends and associates that google knows far more likely what I am to do 'tomorrow' than I do. Always said half in jest, and half in acknowledgement that they have been tracking to actions physically and online for.. a decade?

It's a low key way of chatting about huge datasets and the pattern matching they can provide to computers that we as individuals simply can't keep mental track of due to scale.

We are not as unpredictable as we all believe our tiny flower selves to be.

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