13 ms·

I absolutely agree with this, and I'm not looking forward to the near future of the internet, but it's inevitable. We will hit AOL 2.0, well a few of them. We'l

by Tiksi 11y ago

I absolutely agree with this, and I'm not looking forward to the near future of the internet, but it's inevitable. We will hit AOL 2.0, well a few of them. We'll have the Apple internet, the Facebook internet, the Google internet, etc. but it won't last. The rein of aol was killed by stagnation and outside innovation, people seeing that there's more and better outside of aol, and the second round will probably die a similar death. People will start to see cool new things happening outside their silo, or get fed up with them and the silos will eventually fall. These trends seem cyclical, we go from mainframes and silos to personal computers and an open network, then back to the same mainframes, this time called the cloud, and the same silos. It's not gonna be a fun time for those of us who don't like the confines of the new internet, but the handful of us who care won't stop the inevitable. Me, I still run an irc server because I can, because there's a million clients to choose from, and everyone can have their own interface, and the protocol is so simple a decent programmer can hash out their own in a day. Nothing has come close to it yet (xmpp was great in theory but too complex for its own good). If you want a pretty ui and emojis and images, well there's a client that can do it, if you just want text, plenty of those too. I'll be over here riding out the inevitable with my own file sync, git server, chat server, web server, and making my internet how I want it to be, hoping that in time people will notice that you don't have to just accept your preferred silos interpretation of it.

madeofpalk 11y ago
> The rein of aol was killed by stagnation and outside innovation, people seeing that there's more and better outside of aol, and the second round will probably die a similar death. But now things are very different. Instead of just one one AOL silo, we have many different ones. And we're communicating about them and interacting in ways that we weren't before. The barriers to entry are much lower, and our standards/expectations are higher/different than before.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Aol as a singular silo only lasted so long. Really, there were a few back then too, AIM(and icq)/MSN/Yahoo were probably the biggest and each had a good chunk of users that refused to switch to the others, and each one fell. I also don't think we've hit AOL 2.0 quite yet, so we still have some time to see how it all works out.
aembleton 11y ago
The problem with that is the network effect. None of my friends use IRC, 95% have never even heard of it. Most of my friends are on Facebook Messenger. For more public conversations; a lot of that is now taking place on twitter. Twitter gets promoted by the media with hashtags at the start of TV programmes. I never see any reference to IRC or other protocols. I'm sure people will get bored with these current silos and move on but I doubt they'll move to something more open. The financial incentive just isn't there to develop the protocols and clients for an open system, whereas there is clearly big money to be made by creating the next big silo.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Oh I don't disagree with you, I'm not delusional enough to think that people are going to move to irc, or that it'll become mainstream, it's just a bit saddening. But the thing is it doesn't really matter because irc is a protocol. I don't ever have to worry about support getting dropped because someone wants to monetize it differently. The protocols will never get closed down all of the sudden because it's not popular enough. I can keep running my server as long as I want, independently of any company's decisions. I got a few friends set up on it years ago, and new people join from time to time. It's versatile enough that I just run bitlbee and have access to a bunch of other chat services over irc, all in one client. I think people will get tired of not being able to communicate between their silos and if they get locked in enough, won't want to leave their own service for another one. It happened with AIM/MSN/Yahoo messenger, for a little while everything was moving to xmpp. Your AIM account could talk to people on gtalk, etc. It was nice while it lasted.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    I think something like Slack but aimed groups of friends rather than development teams. I play chess and I ride a bike, I have clubs with both of those things and they currently use facebook to co-ordinate and it works well enough but slack would be considerably better I think. IRC is awesome but it only really handles the talking to people side of things well, sharing files (well), setting events and calendars - the stuff slack does is a huge multiplier.
SunShiranui 11y ago
The problem with IRC is that it now lacks some features that prevent its adoption from a wider userbase. Outside of our tech circle, there's not many people who wouldn't be turned off by having to register an account by typing custom commands. Or chatting without avatar support. It may seem silly, but I think many people are turned off by this.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Yeah, but that can easily be implemented in a client, have the client issue commands to nickserv. Same with avatars, just have a url in your VERSION to the avatar or something. All the features of eg. slack could be implemented client side on top of irc. I even run slack via their irc gateway. I handle file/image uploads with my tiny daemon running on http://paste.click http://paste.click and it's easier (for me) with keybindings than just dragging a file onto the screen, although it wouldn't be difficult to implement it. And it's not silly at all, I understand it, I just wish it wasn't the case. I don't like it but I get it and I don't expect that irc will ever hit the mainstream. Maybe something similar will in the future.
  - SunShiranui 11y ago
    That can indeed be done, although I fear that many clients and servers would implement these additional features differently, thus losing all the good that comes from IRC being an open standard. I don't know if it's been attempted before... but I think it would be interesting to see something open and community-centered like IRC, but with all these little features people now expect.
    - e12e 11y ago
      It might well bee that the best idea going forward is actually to form up a couple of RFCs regarding nickserv and other bots (eg: channel loggers, nickname registration, what are they called, how do they work -- eg: /invite ChanLog -- /who #mychannel -> ChanLog in list -> indicate messages are archived for this channel -- that kind of thing), mandate TLs only connections -- and then have clients implement on top of that. Perhaps some RFCs dealing with SRV-records (where is the web UI with channel logs?) -- or maybe even RFCs on how to mirror some functions (nickserv, logs) via REST-apis.
angrybits 11y ago
> I'll be over here riding out the inevitable with my own file sync, git server, chat server, web server, and making my internet how I want it to be To me, this is exactly why we're not headed for an internet-solely-comprised-of-walled-gardens scenario. There will be plenty for sure, but the pathways will still be open and we netizens can connect whatever we like with them. This is why I am still excited about it, even after 20 years.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  Well, it would revert to the old style "wild west" of the Internet where people who didn't understand the services - mass amounts of lay people - would simply stop using it or stay in sandboxed app/web environments. Perhaps this is a good thing.
  - Tiksi 11y ago
    Heh, this made me think of it as a sort of "Internet gentrification". A new hip service/site starts getting into the mainstream, the lay people move in, it becomes adapted for the lay people, and what made it hip in the first place moves out and on to other things. Doesn't fit perfectly, but I think it's an interesting way to look at it.
    - NovaS1X 11y ago
      This is something I've noticed for a long time. Many communities have this occurrence. usenet, 4chan, reddit, world of warcraft, the "internet" itself etc. Any networked service can fall victim to this pattern. The original community can quickly get displaced and drown in the wake of rushing users and the powers that be will respond to the will of the majority thus betraying it's original intent. Not all fall to this, but many do.
      - alxndr 11y ago
        Usenet's term for this is "eternal September": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
Spooky23 11y ago
The difference now is that the big internet players have money and information that is valuable to others, like governments. When you start hearing about linkages between internet "security" and national defense, that's where things get changed for the worse. If you haven't read "Netheads vs. Bellheads", you should. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.10/atm.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.10/atm.html The next generation "bellhead" crowd, with more security, tariffs on different transactions and control of the network are the folks with big $$$ behind them today.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Thanks for the link to the article, I much enjoyed that, I guess arguments on nanog haven't changed much in 20 years. I think you're right in the short term, but in the long term I think the 'net way' will win out. As they say, the Internet routes around the damage.
- walterbell 11y ago
  Thanks for the article, which suggests the debate is centuries old: "Bellheads use phrases like "rate control" or "traffic shaping" when talking about ATM. Traffic is something to be tamed, sorted, and organized. Even though hundreds of different connections end up multiplexed on a single fiber-optic pipe, every ATM connection is treated as if it has its own, narrower pipe.. Netheads, on the other hand, cheerfully admit they have no idea what traffic will look like next month. It is easier, they say, to have the packets fight it out among themselves than to try to force some kind of order on them. Traffic is unpredictable, spontaneous, liable to jump up in strange patterns.. This philosophical divide should sound familiar. It's the difference between 19th-century scientists who believed in a clockwork universe, mechanistic and predictable, and those contemporary scientists who see everything as an ecosystem, riddled with complexity. It's the difference between central and distributed control, between mainframes and workstations."
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    Just remember when you hear folks talk about security + control, the translation is really $ + power.
hobarrera 11y ago
> The rein of aol was killed by stagnation and outside innovation, people seeing that there's more and better outside of aol, and the second round will probably die a similar death. AOL was also a US-only thing, so when Internet started reaching other countries, they had no adoption. Heck, living in south america I only even heard about what AOL was less than 8 years ago!
- wolfgke 11y ago
  > AOL was also a US-only thing, so when Internet started reaching other countries, they had no adoption. AOL was quite popular in the 90s/beginning of the 00s in Germany. What killed AOL there was the emerging availability of fast internet connections (say, DSL and later cable).
Larrikin 11y ago
At the time, how much was really happening outside of AOL when it started to decline? My family and nearly everyone I knew had AOL in the beginning but what caused everyone to start moving away from AOL was always connected high speed internet. The keyword content at the time was still more interactive than a lot of websites, but the websites were good enough.
contingencies 11y ago
Don't forget the China internet.

by Tiksi 11y ago

madeofpalk 11y ago

> The rein of aol was killed by stagnation and outside innovation, people seeing that there's more and better outside of aol, and the second round will probably die a similar death. But now things are very different. Instead of just one one AOL silo, we have many different ones. And we're communicating about them and interacting in ways that we weren't before. The barriers to entry are much lower, and our standards/expectations are higher/different than before.

Tiksi 11y ago
Aol as a singular silo only lasted so long. Really, there were a few back then too, AIM(and icq)/MSN/Yahoo were probably the biggest and each had a good chunk of users that refused to switch to the others, and each one fell. I also don't think we've hit AOL 2.0 quite yet, so we still have some time to see how it all works out.

aembleton 11y ago

The problem with that is the network effect. None of my friends use IRC, 95% have never even heard of it. Most of my friends are on Facebook Messenger. For more public conversations; a lot of that is now taking place on twitter. Twitter gets promoted by the media with hashtags at the start of TV programmes. I never see any reference to IRC or other protocols. I'm sure people will get bored with these current silos and move on but I doubt they'll move to something more open. The financial incentive just isn't there to develop the protocols and clients for an open system, whereas there is clearly big money to be made by creating the next big silo.

Tiksi 11y ago
Oh I don't disagree with you, I'm not delusional enough to think that people are going to move to irc, or that it'll become mainstream, it's just a bit saddening. But the thing is it doesn't really matter because irc is a protocol. I don't ever have to worry about support getting dropped because someone wants to monetize it differently. The protocols will never get closed down all of the sudden because it's not popular enough. I can keep running my server as long as I want, independently of any company's decisions. I got a few friends set up on it years ago, and new people join from time to time. It's versatile enough that I just run bitlbee and have access to a bunch of other chat services over irc, all in one client. I think people will get tired of not being able to communicate between their silos and if they get locked in enough, won't want to leave their own service for another one. It happened with AIM/MSN/Yahoo messenger, for a little while everything was moving to xmpp. Your AIM account could talk to people on gtalk, etc. It was nice while it lasted.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  I think something like Slack but aimed groups of friends rather than development teams. I play chess and I ride a bike, I have clubs with both of those things and they currently use facebook to co-ordinate and it works well enough but slack would be considerably better I think. IRC is awesome but it only really handles the talking to people side of things well, sharing files (well), setting events and calendars - the stuff slack does is a huge multiplier.

SunShiranui 11y ago

The problem with IRC is that it now lacks some features that prevent its adoption from a wider userbase. Outside of our tech circle, there's not many people who wouldn't be turned off by having to register an account by typing custom commands. Or chatting without avatar support. It may seem silly, but I think many people are turned off by this.

Tiksi 11y ago
Yeah, but that can easily be implemented in a client, have the client issue commands to nickserv. Same with avatars, just have a url in your VERSION to the avatar or something. All the features of eg. slack could be implemented client side on top of irc. I even run slack via their irc gateway. I handle file/image uploads with my tiny daemon running on http://paste.click http://paste.click and it's easier (for me) with keybindings than just dragging a file onto the screen, although it wouldn't be difficult to implement it. And it's not silly at all, I understand it, I just wish it wasn't the case. I don't like it but I get it and I don't expect that irc will ever hit the mainstream. Maybe something similar will in the future.
- SunShiranui 11y ago
  That can indeed be done, although I fear that many clients and servers would implement these additional features differently, thus losing all the good that comes from IRC being an open standard. I don't know if it's been attempted before... but I think it would be interesting to see something open and community-centered like IRC, but with all these little features people now expect.
  - e12e 11y ago
    It might well bee that the best idea going forward is actually to form up a couple of RFCs regarding nickserv and other bots (eg: channel loggers, nickname registration, what are they called, how do they work -- eg: /invite ChanLog -- /who #mychannel -> ChanLog in list -> indicate messages are archived for this channel -- that kind of thing), mandate TLs only connections -- and then have clients implement on top of that. Perhaps some RFCs dealing with SRV-records (where is the web UI with channel logs?) -- or maybe even RFCs on how to mirror some functions (nickserv, logs) via REST-apis.

angrybits 11y ago

> I'll be over here riding out the inevitable with my own file sync, git server, chat server, web server, and making my internet how I want it to be To me, this is exactly why we're not headed for an internet-solely-comprised-of-walled-gardens scenario. There will be plenty for sure, but the pathways will still be open and we netizens can connect whatever we like with them. This is why I am still excited about it, even after 20 years.

FilterSweep 11y ago
Well, it would revert to the old style "wild west" of the Internet where people who didn't understand the services - mass amounts of lay people - would simply stop using it or stay in sandboxed app/web environments. Perhaps this is a good thing.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Heh, this made me think of it as a sort of "Internet gentrification". A new hip service/site starts getting into the mainstream, the lay people move in, it becomes adapted for the lay people, and what made it hip in the first place moves out and on to other things. Doesn't fit perfectly, but I think it's an interesting way to look at it.
  - NovaS1X 11y ago
    This is something I've noticed for a long time. Many communities have this occurrence. usenet, 4chan, reddit, world of warcraft, the "internet" itself etc. Any networked service can fall victim to this pattern. The original community can quickly get displaced and drown in the wake of rushing users and the powers that be will respond to the will of the majority thus betraying it's original intent. Not all fall to this, but many do.
    - alxndr 11y ago
      Usenet's term for this is "eternal September": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Spooky23 11y ago

The difference now is that the big internet players have money and information that is valuable to others, like governments. When you start hearing about linkages between internet "security" and national defense, that's where things get changed for the worse. If you haven't read "Netheads vs. Bellheads", you should. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.10/atm.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.10/atm.html The next generation "bellhead" crowd, with more security, tariffs on different transactions and control of the network are the folks with big $$$ behind them today.

Tiksi 11y ago
Thanks for the link to the article, I much enjoyed that, I guess arguments on nanog haven't changed much in 20 years. I think you're right in the short term, but in the long term I think the 'net way' will win out. As they say, the Internet routes around the damage.
walterbell 11y ago
Thanks for the article, which suggests the debate is centuries old: "Bellheads use phrases like "rate control" or "traffic shaping" when talking about ATM. Traffic is something to be tamed, sorted, and organized. Even though hundreds of different connections end up multiplexed on a single fiber-optic pipe, every ATM connection is treated as if it has its own, narrower pipe.. Netheads, on the other hand, cheerfully admit they have no idea what traffic will look like next month. It is easier, they say, to have the packets fight it out among themselves than to try to force some kind of order on them. Traffic is unpredictable, spontaneous, liable to jump up in strange patterns.. This philosophical divide should sound familiar. It's the difference between 19th-century scientists who believed in a clockwork universe, mechanistic and predictable, and those contemporary scientists who see everything as an ecosystem, riddled with complexity. It's the difference between central and distributed control, between mainframes and workstations."
- Spooky23 11y ago
  Just remember when you hear folks talk about security + control, the translation is really $ + power.

hobarrera 11y ago

> The rein of aol was killed by stagnation and outside innovation, people seeing that there's more and better outside of aol, and the second round will probably die a similar death. AOL was also a US-only thing, so when Internet started reaching other countries, they had no adoption. Heck, living in south america I only even heard about what AOL was less than 8 years ago!

wolfgke 11y ago
> AOL was also a US-only thing, so when Internet started reaching other countries, they had no adoption. AOL was quite popular in the 90s/beginning of the 00s in Germany. What killed AOL there was the emerging availability of fast internet connections (say, DSL and later cable).

Larrikin 11y ago

At the time, how much was really happening outside of AOL when it started to decline? My family and nearly everyone I knew had AOL in the beginning but what caused everyone to start moving away from AOL was always connected high speed internet. The keyword content at the time was still more interactive than a lot of websites, but the websites were good enough.

contingencies 11y ago

Don't forget the China internet.