Using the internet like its 1999
8 points by confusedalex
8 points by confusedalex
we must have lived different 1999s.
gopher was useless by then
usenet/nntp was still common
I remember when the web became a thing, around 1993. Gopher was a dead protocol at that point, it just didn’t know it yet.
I remember with amusement in…2000 or so…when HTTP overtook FTP as the most-used protocol on the internet. My how far we’ve come.
With the influx of slop that will be created (and already has been created) with LLMs, there is an ever increasing signal to noise on these platforms.
This is not a definition of ”signal to noise” that I am familiar with.
I’m not really a fan of the calls to RETVRN to a previous, purer Internet. There was a lot of shit there too, despite (or maybe because) everyone on it being more male and white.
This is incredibly reductive.
The web of the '90s and early '00s was special, in how much it allowed misfits who could find no community elsewhere the ability to find their peers[1] (spending time online was itself pretty stigmatized at this time), in a way that was not possible before, and no longer since the web went mainstream and persecution and harassment went online.
The early web has saved many lives in marginalized groups, and utterly re-shaped among other things queer culture and the discussion around neurodivergence.
We really don't have that anymore. Not in the same way. Anything that with even the slightest whiff of disenfranchisement has been co-opted into predatory political extremism funnels, because angry youths make useful idiots for the far left and right alike.
[1] This was mostly a force for good, even though this occasionally took some unfortunate turns.
in a way that was not possible before, and no longer since the web went mainstream and persecution and harassment went online
That’s certainly a take of all time. There are so many small, niche communities of weirdos online (and even large ones). I mean, I feel like the obvious example is furries have loads of spaces where they’re accepted and welcomed and can find each other. Obviously there’s shit like kiwifarms, but I don’t see how that takes away the possibility of finding a community.
You can find like minded people, but you can't find a reprieve or a safe haven, because of stuff like kiwifarms, and just general online busybodies who make it their lives mission to infiltrate, doxx and catalogue people whose life choices they disagree with.
I do fully agree with you that that’s a thing and it sucks, but also I think it’s still possible to find those safe places, though it might take more work to keep them safe than it used to
The hook pulled me in so good work on that. I tried out IRC again recently and it was very very dead, we may be at the point where it takes years to get back to what it was even in the 2010s. I am also back on RSS in my attempt to avoid feed-based websites.
I am basically off reddit now for much the same reasons you mentioned, too much time wasted arguing with dishonest bad actors. Same with X.
I stripped out a lot from my personal site earlier this year and went to a very simple Hugo theme after WordPress.
Justin Jackson wrote "Words" years ago focusing on some of the same principles.
Yeah I also don't get warm with IRC. It feels very hard to be part of the community for me.