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The web, on this day 10 years ago
- nkcmr 9y agoWow. 10 years ago today, a Breitbart link was at the top of the reddit front page. Huh...
- CGamesPlay 9y agoThat FOX News cover story seems pretty well-substantiated.
- jklinger410 9y agoBreitbart has changed a lot in the last decade. It used to be far more reputable IIRC.
- thehardsphere 9y agoIt began its descent after Andrew Breitbart died. I think it was in 2012.
- vowelless 9y agoRon Paul and libertarianism were also super popular on Reddit back in the day. I remember that influencing a lot of my early political thinking.
- savanaly 9y agoThings do not appear to have changed that much, huh?
- ivrrimum 9y agoWhat are you talking about?
- thangngoc89 9y agoI really like the idea, and looking at Youtube interface 10 years ago remind me of the time when I started writing small programs. But I'm disappointing that the website doesn't use SSL at all.
- frik 9y agoIt just links to Archive.org, and spoofs the address bar. So the content is 100% loaded from Archive.org. A very trivial website, but interesting looking back for a few minutes nevertheless. You can do the same with a more complex interface on Archive.org.
- cylinder 9y agoWhy would you need encryption on this site?
- gmacdon89 9y agoron paul, lol
- bitwize 9y agopopular subreddits: * programming * science Oh, how times have changed.
- zappo2938 9y agoThey are on Hacker News now.
- bitwize 9y agoHN is a hivemind. Post wrongthink and you will be downvoted to oblivion. I posted a scientific paper that shows legalizing prostitution increases the volume of human trafficking and I was shit on because it goes against HN social-libertarian dogma. So are these our choices: a hivemind or a shitstorm of trolls, griefers, and 4chan kiddies? I don't have any answers here.
- hhmc 9y agoThe 'race to the bottom' of reddit has been fascinating to watch. I think it clearly demonstrates that without moderation popular forums will necessarily devolve to lowest common denominator content. (I do, however, appreciate there are still quality subreddits).
- the_cat_kittles 9y agoagree, though i think its tempting to view this cynically rather than as an almost inevitable product of the circumstances. i think it was david foster wallace who made a similar point about tv, namely that it caters to the lowest common denominator because thats what we all share- you cannot have the "mass" part of mass media without doing that. we all have more deep interests, but they are disparate- so the venn diagram essentially dictates the subject matter.
- hhmc 9y agoFor sure, but technological trends have certainly catalysed the process, at least with respect to reddit. The ubiquity of the gif, and incredibly low friction image hosting services come to mind.
- kasbah 9y agohttp://tenyearsago.io/news.ycombinator.com http://tenyearsago.io/news.ycombinator.com >504 Gateway Time-out >The server didn't respond in time.
- gs7 9y agoFront page story 10 years ago on the NY Times: In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich (http://web.archive.org/web/20070805144155/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html?hp http://web.archive.org/web/20070805144155/http://www.nytimes...) Sounds familiar...
- tsunamifury 9y agoI remember reading this exact story in college thinking, I'll happily move to a place where he had a million and don't feel rich... I'd still have a million. And more or less, it's worked out. You still live vastly better here with a million than many other parts of the world without a million.
- ardivekar 9y agoSo basically you're saying, having a million dollars is better than not having a million dollars :P
- dubya1 9y agoBe careful - I got a bad cookie when I visited this website a few days ago.
- icebraining 9y agoWhat's a bad cookie?
- kjbarber 9y agoOatmeal raisin...
- davidcbc 9y agoThe CSS for ESPN wouldn't load properly for me which accurately replicates the experience of using ESPN's site 10 years ago
- czardoz 9y agoHaha, the HN post about Facebook has a very interesting comment which mentions the internet "a decade from now": > It is just a joke that Facebook could be valued at $6 billion. An absolute joke. > FB has 30 million users, and that's not considering potential duplicates. > The number of active users may be even smaller than that, and some people like I only log on once a week or so. > If FB gets sold for $6 billion, that means the new owning company would need to make $500 million a year for 12 years(!) to break even. > Frankly, the Internet will probably be drastically different a decade from now. > FB doesn't even make $50 million a year, who in their right mind thinks that they will all of a sudden make a profit off Facebook by spending that much money? > I swear some of these big companies just like throwing money at things. Yes, the dot-com bubble is here once again. Original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34165
- sillysaurus3 9y agoMy favorite: http://web.archive.org/web/20130719195617/https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=Uk2T1r85YJ http://web.archive.org/web/20130719195617/https://news.ycomb...
- czardoz 9y agoHmm, I see "Unknown or expired link" when I visit that. Is this a joke I didn't get?
- sillysaurus3 9y agoYeah, it was nostalgia. Expiring links used to be something of a plague. Made me chuckle a bit to see it again. http://web.archive.org/web/20070716155904/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/item?id=34095 http://web.archive.org/web/20070716155904/http://news.ycombi... is a good rebuttal to the FB criticism though.
- thevardanian 9y agoThey're not wrong. We live in cuckooland.
- frik 9y agoReddit and HN look almost the same, only little web theme changes. Look how great the HN stories were, all around startups - no corporate PR nor offtopic - want it back :) http://web.archive.org/web/20070707020853/http://news.ycombinator.com/news http://web.archive.org/web/20070707020853/http://news.ycombi... One of the stories "PG: What's your current take on reddit's comment system? (reddit.com)": http://web.archive.org/web/20070714221535/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/item?id=33886 http://web.archive.org/web/20070714221535/http://news.ycombi... Another story was about Justin.tv, nowadays know as Twitch: http://web.archive.org/web/20070708190608/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/item?id=32786 http://web.archive.org/web/20070708190608/http://news.ycombi... Look at Apple.com, the introduction to the first iPhone. Notice the YouTube app on iOS 1-4 looked like a vintage CRT TV, I remember it. IMDb received a new CSS stylesheet, and the invaluable comments system got unfortunately removed - otherwise little changes. YouTube changed a lot. Ten years ago it looks still like the early days before Google.
- jbigelow76 9y agoHacker News comments age about as well as Donald Trump's tweets regarding the Obama administration.
- muninn_ 9y agoWhy are you already introducing politics into this discussion?
- jMyles 9y ago> introducing politics Any discussion about company valuations is as political as a discussion about US elections. Pretending that "business" and "politics" and "technology" are separated by clearly discernible walls is itself toxic to discussions about any of them.
- muninn_ 9y agoBut politics are hardly relevant here. Somebody was pointing out interesting comments about Facebook and now I'm reading about Trump? It's low-quality material and has nothing to do with the discussion.
- jMyles 9y agoI can understand your reaction, but I will say that it provoked an interesting thought in me. I think that the matter of how well material ages is an interesting and difficult-to-predict metric, and that it is quite interesting that we are now measuring this metric using the unit of tweets from one head-of-state about a former one.
- muninn_ 9y agoWell I certainly wouldn't use it as a measurement. Why should we?
- sethrin 9y agoThat may or may not be the case (I would dispute it) but the rules here expressly place political discussions as off-topic. From what I have seen, banning accounts seems to be a last resort for people who post almost exclusively political attacks; one has to be fairly intent on making oneself unpleasant to raise attention. I tend to agree with you that there can be value to political debate, but we must abide by the rules of the forum.
- bdcravens 9y agoTop story on HN: Wesabe, a dead startup. Tells you how important HN launches are.
- internalfx 9y agoLOL. Hacker news looks exactly the same.
- hjek 9y agoTen years ago I could use the upvote arrows on HN w/o JavaScript.
- nothrabannosir 9y agoSo nothing has changed.
- thaaddd 9y agoThis open up a flood of nostalgia for anyone else? Apple, Youtube, and Amazon especially. All sorts of feels.
- droidist2 9y agoYes, I really miss the old YouTube look.
- losteverything 9y agoWhat i love about these things is i have to think about back then What phone was i using? When did i last buy a roll of film? First amazon order and what was it? First online order? When did i get rid of landline? When did i stop using aol? When did i get gmail?
- taneq 9y agoPretty sure it was an Ericsson W880i. The last non-touchscreen phone I owned... I miss that phone sometimes. Roll of film? What's that again? I think I still haven't ordered anything off Amazon, hadn't bought much online at all back then. I've never had a landline in my own name (that we actually used, had a couple that came with an ADSL bundle when naked ADSL wasn't cheaper). What's AOL? Got Gmail in '04 I think, late in the 'invite only' phase before they got evil.
- xienze 9y agoReddit 10 years ago > BUSH BAD BUSH BAD BUSH BAD Reddit today > TRUMP BAD TRUMP BAD TRUMP BAD
- pier25 9y agoYou can stay away from /r/all or /r/popular.
- howderek 9y agoI wish this would link directly to the Internet Archive instead of showing it in a frame so that it would be easier to send links to people.
- bhdzllr 9y agoNice idea. Looked at the Apple website and before they opened iOS for native development (and monetarization through the App Store) they tried to push Web-Apps, but maybe this was just a experiment to validate if people will use it: > Developers can create Web 2.0 applications that look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and provide seamless integration with iPhone applications and services including making a phone call, sending an email, and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using web standards can extend iPhone's capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.
- manmal 9y agoA collegue (in college) told me that they initially did not want to release a developer kit (Steve did not "believe" in apps) and that they were a bit ashamed of the state the SDK was in at the time. I've found no article verifying this though.
- bigphishy 9y agoThis reminds me of another good site www.pastdaily.com
- shurcooL 9y agoOne pattern I notice and dislike is the increase of average font size on the web (and in OSes), and the overall decrease in density of information. BBC 10 years ago vs now side by side shows the difference [1]. [1] http://instantshare.virtivia.com:27080/1k6i3cajkox2c.png http://instantshare.virtivia.com:27080/1k6i3cajkox2c.png
- tkp 9y ago> BBC 10 years ago vs now side by side shows the difference [1]. Ads take a lot of space on current BBC capture.
- axefrog 9y agoDon't forget that screen resolutions were lower on average back then, which means that the side-by-side comparison doesn't really account for relative scale.
- wingworks 9y agoI don't think the BBC is doing that bad, but I do notice allot of sites these days do look huge on my 15" MBP, and you have to scroll a tonne to see very little. Though these sites usually work pretty well on my 27" iMac, I feel like no one makes responsive sites anymore.
- dbg31415 9y agoNice to see HN keeping up with the times. No redesigns in how long now? The fonts on this site are hilariously small. Padding is tiny. All the feel of the 1990s, today! Still good content, but come on -- do we not have a designer or artistic front-end who can help out?
- krapp 9y agoI think the anti-modern layout has become too much of a cultural shibboleth at this point, people cherish any feature they feel will drive away casual users and preserve the intellectual purity of the community. PG once mentioned that he wasn't concerned with such trivial things, which makes updating the design difficult without sparking a minor revolt among the userbase, especially if such an update causes the site to look or feel more like Reddit, which it likely would. Plus, bear in mind that HN doesn't separate its logic from layout in templates, unless it deviates wildly from the original Arc forum code, so redesigning the layout around, say, lists as opposed to tables may be more complicated than it would be on another site. But on the plus side, since i've been here at least, the expired links bug has been fixed, shadowbanning is community-reversible, Show HN is a thing, users can hide and favorite threads, and there's thread folding. Those are all definite improvements to the user experience. I agree with you that the text could be more readable - a site meant for intellectual and technical discussion should be encouraging long-form comments, not discouraging it (as it does by fading the text for non-link post) but it does seem that the staff have been improving what they can, when they can get around to it.
- dbg31415 9y agoI'd like to see a site that has the best content in the industry actually look like a site that has the best content in the industry.
- wingworks 9y agoIDK, doesn't really bother me anymore, not since some pretty good Chrome extensions came out, e.g. Georgify, which makes HN 1000% easier to read. + I built my own minimal front end to HN with just the info I'm interested in ( https://news.adriel.co.nz/ https://news.adriel.co.nz/ )
- fallingfrog 9y agoHah, not a word about subprime mortgages
- jimjimjim 9y agoThe web, on this day 10 years ago was better.
- tapanjk 9y ago10 years later, here's what I feel: - Some websites have changed for the better, for e.g. youtube.com - Some have changed but maintained the same feel, for e.g. amazon.com and news.ycombinator.com - Some have changed little, but I wish they had not changed, because they used to be better, for e.g. reddit.com and nytimes.com
- starky 9y agoReddit was significantly more US focused and political than I remember. Wasn't surprised to see a Ron Paul article up at the top, but I remember more technology and programming type articles. It does show how much nicer the front page was when it wasn't full of low effort pictures because image hosting sucked until imgur came along.
- bhaile 9y agoFun link on Reddit: http://web.archive.org/web/20070819054905/http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070819054905/http://whyfirefoxi...