Humanity may never see anything like the 90s-2000s era again. That was a distinct milieu of nearly unbound creation and discovery. Not only did corporations remained skeptical of the internet. People were highly averse to being manipulated because the internet was untrustworthy. Paradoxically that’s what made the internet trustworthy. Once trust was established of course. It was a perfect mix of factors that made it a unique period in history.

i do. games have matchmaking, reddit and startpage searches help me a lot. even microsoft has basic excel videos uploaded. easy to find torrents, easy to customise your phone experience. i dont have to suffer with irc or msn.

you just need to set up a strict browser and some blocking rules, and you are good to go.

i have to admit, i never cared about blogs, never felt the need to read anything. i like to browse forums tho. xda, vogons, mobilism, stuff like that still exists.

I don’t know who are they, but they could just curate their online experience by looking for something that is actually organic and genuine, and drop their anchors on that.

VRChat still has a little old internet. Some worlds are weird, but some communities engage in stimulating discourse. Of course, avatars and such are monetized to some extent, but not the spoken content (please don’t monetize speech).

It’s a good post, I agree with it. And I guess The Pale is a good description of what we are noticing.

I got to experience the internet before it became like this, so at least I have memories of greatness. But the desire for great profits ruins everything. Not only the internet but the world.

Greed for excessive amounts of money is the root of evil, the bible got that right. But humans are not aware enough to see a future where greed is not the driving force of society.

I hope that we’ll collectively decide that it’s rude to pass off LLM writing as your own, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

We won’t unless we stop the source perpetuating this “culture.”

Big Tech.

Unfortunately, they kinda have a grip on everyone’s information sphere, so I think our chances are low :(

Maybe all this bullshit is a needed step to bring back old internet

We need forums back… the fediverse is a good start in my book.

Try to look at it as the chapter of the internet as we know it is over. I feel the same way as this author but I hold out hope innovation will happen.

Someone will fill the void. How and when it happens remains to be seen. There was a time not too long ago when it was unfathomable for people to have computers in their pocket.

The simpsons will probably predict it.

AI is spam

Escape to the smøl web! The tildeverse calls.

The internet isn’t the internet anymore. It’s walled off, corporatized, and exclusionary.

The internet used to be for people.

Now it’s for profit.

Yeah, well it’s full of malicious actors now, an they generally out influence and overwhelm the ordinary user.

The internet was nice when it was a non-profit space for nerds, but now it’s the main way to peddle money and influence in the world so it’s nasty and corrupt.

the ideas of the early net were merely ideals and were never going to last once money got involved. very few ideals ever last once money and power become the currency.

Everything gets enshittified - Capitalised, and nothing good ever comes out of those leeches and parasites.

The Capitalist religion crushed a new global, free and open digital community landscape. Say loud and proud: ‘thank you Capitalist believer’, for how it looks and works today…

Learning about the world through 500-character snippets, or 30-second videos, is not a serious way to engage with knowledge.

Just don’t consume it. Same for blogs.

It’s like junk food. It’s not going away, so just don’t consume it.

I’ve actually started to enjoy internet more recently. I went back to IRC, found a nice network with a wholesome community which is growing all the time. Recently added a phpbb based forum, which is not very active yet but thats more because its fairly new. Lots of self hosting enthusiasts there, I’ve learned a bunch. Spent the last few weeks setting up Jellyfin and Navidrome for my dad to use, so he doesnt have to deal with repeats on the Telly or pay for stupid subscriptions. I did the navidrome with a old laptop, I put in a headless Debian and use it through SSH on my Fedora. A year ago I barely knew how to do “sudo apt install”, without this community I wouldnt have been able to do any of it. For the first time in 15 years, I’m enjoying my time online. Like properly enjoying.

So its not about internet being ruined, its about finding that spot that you can enjoy. Let people rot their brains in tiktak and facetagram, you find yourself a nice community of like minded people. It takes some effort, but the communities are there. And if they are not, make one yourself.