4 ms·

Everyone cheered the demise of MySpace for Facebook, but in retrospect MySpace was the last dying gasps of the "old internet" (what I refer to as the "real web"

Everyone cheered the demise of MySpace for Facebook, but in retrospect MySpace was the last dying gasps of the "old internet" (what I refer to as the "real web"). Sure it was a rough and tumble world that wasn't exactly "pretty". But from that ugliness sprang levels of self expression and freedom not seen today anywhere else, because when you give people total freedom amazing things can happen. Corporations don't like amazing, rare, or incredible things. They like standardized, predictable mediocrity. Which is precisely what they've molded the web into over the past 10 years.

mgummelt 9y ago
What amazing things happened on Myspace?
- xenihn 9y ago
  Tila Tequila and Millionaires
- agumonkey 9y ago
  To me, and I never was a heavy user of either myspace or facebook, was the human lightness of it. It wasn't political, regulated... it wasn't a brick on top of which serious thing should develop.
  - mgummelt 9y ago
    The same could be said of FB early on. It just got bigger.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      so maybe it was just a byproduct a new fad in our society to reimplement itself on top of the web (social, commercial, ...) which distorded the original thing.
- tomjakubowski 9y ago
  It was an easy way to get "your own" place on the web, and you could edit the HTML/CSS of your Myspace page to some extent. I know a handful of folks who got their start programming by hacking their Myspace pages.
- sjm-lbm 9y ago
  I don't know if this was just an experience that I had, but peak MySpace happened right as I was hitting a point in my life where I really wanted to seek out new music. I found a lot of interesting/local/terrible/excellent music from MySpace band pages back then, and I'm not aware of a platform that I really think recreates the MySpace music experience. Not sure if that was a very universal experience, but it does give you an example.
  - heurist 9y ago
    What do you think is missing from contemporary platforms?
    - mr_spothawk 9y ago
      for my contemporary listening pleasure, if Spotify had chatrooms I would be in them with my best music sharing buds all day. likewise, shared/live-playlist making would be very popular among my friends.
    - confounded 9y ago
      MP3 upload
alexkavon 9y ago
I was actually just thinking about how much independent art, music, video, etc. that I was into back in the myspace days. Now things are very spread out and discoverability is very low unless you're heavily invested in a platform (which can be exhausting across multiple platforms).
agumonkey 9y ago
This era is very very weird. So much capabilities, possibilities .. yet something is off. Facebook added value in my eyes, it add ways to interact through games and shared info whereas myspace was a glorified blog (on top of ugly html). Yet facebook turned sour long term..
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  What's off is a persistent lack of shared humanity. It seems like the corporate tech space is full of people trying to be Stakhanovite Heroes of Accumulative Capitalism, where all interactions are valued according to their contribution to the company bottom line, closely shadowed by the company brand. That doesn't leave much room for the things that make being human fun.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I meant broader than just companies and employees. I don't disagree with your comment though.
- mnl 9y ago
  Internet was supposed to give everybody a voice and the chance to be heard, a wider open door to whatever information they wanted, it was the global village dream, the digital land of freedom and opportunity. Ha! we were too naïve, it has just given societies the means to be more dysfunctional than they possibly could with non-interactive media. Information is just money, it doesn't need to be true to have a definite value. Your personal information is money, where you are, who you are, what you're browsing is money. Politics don't matter any more, because they can be fixed by retconning and you won't notice, you won't care, because what matters is the constant flow of shiny glimpses of happiness you could get some day or you simply wish you had any chance to get close to, all at your fingertips waiting for your input. All these interactive ephemera are provided by some corporation in exchange for your consumer profile. And if you feel that there's not much freedom nor much opportunity after all, well there's room at the conspiracists alley for you, you're more than welcome.
  - 9y ago
noblethrasher 9y ago
Yeah, I made this same observation/lament six years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876834
fixermark 9y ago
The bad news is: users don't like amazing, rare, or incredible things (at least along some axes of those concepts). MySpace was an eyesore of anything-goes color scheme and design that made for a headache-inducing trip. Facebook brought uniformity to that information set that was a welcome change. There were good things about MySpace, but there's a reason FB and its ilk came to dominate the user adoption numbers.
- kristopolous 9y ago
  That's not conclusive. The primary reason for MySpace's userbase crashing was the founders exiting after the News Corp acquisition. If Facebook had been acquired instead and stopped innovating at the same time they wouldn't have things such as the like button, status updates, or feeds. They brought those things in frantically to knock off Twitter just like they've been knocking off snapchat recently. Users these days seem to be totally delighted by decking out selfies with icons and tacky animations. They seem to be completely alright, and by in large prefer it when videos play at full volume by complete surprise, automatically when scrolling and flipping. Be weary of projecting your personal aesthetic tastes on the population at large
UncleMeat 9y ago
Mediocrity? When I think about what I can do on the web today and what I could do in 2008 or 1998 there is no comparison. If you want to publish your fully static site with a tiny footprint that just displays documents then feel free. I'll be over here with group video chat, collaborative editing, and more.
- ericmcer 9y ago
  Which is even sadder, the tools and capabilities are available , but products are shaped by demand. The current market is Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat like products all racing to the bottom. Who can deliver users dopamine spikes while imposing zero intellectual demand? We need comically easy apps, and single button interfaces. 7 seconds before a user loses interest :O.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I'll be over here with group video chat, collaborative editing, and more. It's not about the capabilities, it's about the impact they have. Most users today will just opt for the defaults (FB, and other crap).

mgummelt 9y ago

What amazing things happened on Myspace?

xenihn 9y ago
Tila Tequila and Millionaires
agumonkey 9y ago
To me, and I never was a heavy user of either myspace or facebook, was the human lightness of it. It wasn't political, regulated... it wasn't a brick on top of which serious thing should develop.
- mgummelt 9y ago
  The same could be said of FB early on. It just got bigger.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    so maybe it was just a byproduct a new fad in our society to reimplement itself on top of the web (social, commercial, ...) which distorded the original thing.
tomjakubowski 9y ago
It was an easy way to get "your own" place on the web, and you could edit the HTML/CSS of your Myspace page to some extent. I know a handful of folks who got their start programming by hacking their Myspace pages.
sjm-lbm 9y ago
I don't know if this was just an experience that I had, but peak MySpace happened right as I was hitting a point in my life where I really wanted to seek out new music. I found a lot of interesting/local/terrible/excellent music from MySpace band pages back then, and I'm not aware of a platform that I really think recreates the MySpace music experience. Not sure if that was a very universal experience, but it does give you an example.
- heurist 9y ago
  What do you think is missing from contemporary platforms?
  - mr_spothawk 9y ago
    for my contemporary listening pleasure, if Spotify had chatrooms I would be in them with my best music sharing buds all day. likewise, shared/live-playlist making would be very popular among my friends.
  - confounded 9y ago
    MP3 upload

alexkavon 9y ago

I was actually just thinking about how much independent art, music, video, etc. that I was into back in the myspace days. Now things are very spread out and discoverability is very low unless you're heavily invested in a platform (which can be exhausting across multiple platforms).

agumonkey 9y ago

This era is very very weird. So much capabilities, possibilities .. yet something is off. Facebook added value in my eyes, it add ways to interact through games and shared info whereas myspace was a glorified blog (on top of ugly html). Yet facebook turned sour long term..

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
What's off is a persistent lack of shared humanity. It seems like the corporate tech space is full of people trying to be Stakhanovite Heroes of Accumulative Capitalism, where all interactions are valued according to their contribution to the company bottom line, closely shadowed by the company brand. That doesn't leave much room for the things that make being human fun.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  I meant broader than just companies and employees. I don't disagree with your comment though.
mnl 9y ago
Internet was supposed to give everybody a voice and the chance to be heard, a wider open door to whatever information they wanted, it was the global village dream, the digital land of freedom and opportunity. Ha! we were too naïve, it has just given societies the means to be more dysfunctional than they possibly could with non-interactive media. Information is just money, it doesn't need to be true to have a definite value. Your personal information is money, where you are, who you are, what you're browsing is money. Politics don't matter any more, because they can be fixed by retconning and you won't notice, you won't care, because what matters is the constant flow of shiny glimpses of happiness you could get some day or you simply wish you had any chance to get close to, all at your fingertips waiting for your input. All these interactive ephemera are provided by some corporation in exchange for your consumer profile. And if you feel that there's not much freedom nor much opportunity after all, well there's room at the conspiracists alley for you, you're more than welcome.
- 9y ago

noblethrasher 9y ago

Yeah, I made this same observation/lament six years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876834

fixermark 9y ago

The bad news is: users don't like amazing, rare, or incredible things (at least along some axes of those concepts). MySpace was an eyesore of anything-goes color scheme and design that made for a headache-inducing trip. Facebook brought uniformity to that information set that was a welcome change. There were good things about MySpace, but there's a reason FB and its ilk came to dominate the user adoption numbers.

kristopolous 9y ago
That's not conclusive. The primary reason for MySpace's userbase crashing was the founders exiting after the News Corp acquisition. If Facebook had been acquired instead and stopped innovating at the same time they wouldn't have things such as the like button, status updates, or feeds. They brought those things in frantically to knock off Twitter just like they've been knocking off snapchat recently. Users these days seem to be totally delighted by decking out selfies with icons and tacky animations. They seem to be completely alright, and by in large prefer it when videos play at full volume by complete surprise, automatically when scrolling and flipping. Be weary of projecting your personal aesthetic tastes on the population at large

UncleMeat 9y ago

Mediocrity? When I think about what I can do on the web today and what I could do in 2008 or 1998 there is no comparison. If you want to publish your fully static site with a tiny footprint that just displays documents then feel free. I'll be over here with group video chat, collaborative editing, and more.

ericmcer 9y ago
Which is even sadder, the tools and capabilities are available , but products are shaped by demand. The current market is Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat like products all racing to the bottom. Who can deliver users dopamine spikes while imposing zero intellectual demand? We need comically easy apps, and single button interfaces. 7 seconds before a user loses interest :O.
coldtea 9y ago
>I'll be over here with group video chat, collaborative editing, and more. It's not about the capabilities, it's about the impact they have. Most users today will just opt for the defaults (FB, and other crap).