4 ms·

I have been saying I've "reached the end of the internet" for awhile now. I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff

I have been saying I've "reached the end of the internet" for awhile now. I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then. Trying to get a 56k modem to work, dealing with the fact that you couldn't always get online or if you did you could get kicked off at any time. I remember streaming the Tibetan Freedom Concert with realplayer back in '98. The first mp3 i got, napster, rotten.com, the excitement of ordering from amazon, searching for cracked passwords for photoshop and dreamweaver... in general just figuring shit out. The internet was a mess back then and even though it was frustrating as hell, it was exciting. Now it just seems like every website online is trying to steal and sell your data. I feel like I have to have a heightened sense of awareness around anything I do. The internet used to be just barely within reach and now it's just crammed down your throat all day long. Nothing seems to work and all for the wrong reasons. Nothing worked back then but that was part of the experience.... now it's just... blah. I have fallen into a terrible habit of looking at reddit since I don't use any social media. I read crap on r/politics before bed and end up being so frustrated that I have a hard time falling asleep. Recently I decided to check out a book from the library (House of Leaves, very interesting so far!) and have been reading before bed and not looking at my phone at all. I have been able to fall asleep much easier and I actually have crazy dreams and wake up refreshed. For the first time in years I look forward to going to bed. Not sure what to make of all of it. Fortunately I have found lately that I'm desiring more analog activities (reading, woodworking, hiking) than I have in a long time. It is nice to be able to use the internet as more of a tool to augment my activities rather than being THE activity.

charliepark 8y ago
It sounds like you're content being offline more, which is great. If you miss it, though … per your comment that "nothing worked back then but that was part of the experience", you might enjoy seeing if there's a local Homebrew Website Club meeting near you (https://indieweb.org/Homebrew_Website_Club https://indieweb.org/Homebrew_Website_Club). I've gone to a couple meetings of the SF one, and it's a nice, earnest, group of makers, looking to build cool stuff on the internet, independent of corporate efforts "to steal and sell your data". They have a sense of that feeling that "The internet was a mess back then and even though it was frustrating as hell, it was exciting."
- cityzen 8y ago
  thanks for the info, will definitely check it out!
jakespencer 8y ago
I have nothing interesting to add, except that I literally just stood up from reading House of Leaves in bed before sleep.
- cityzen 8y ago
  How far are you? Are you reading all of the footnotes? I am so confused about it all but I love it. It has really sparked a curiosity I haven't had in awhile. Btw, have you heard of the book Ship of Theseus? I bought it for my wife and we haven't jumped into it yet but seems similar in that it's a big puzzle: https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Theseus-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642 https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Theseus-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642 (and JJ Abrams if you're a fan)
  - eyeundersand 8y ago
    I'm not OP, but I finished House of Leaves a year back and you definitely want to read the footnotes and everything else that Danielewski (or Zampano, if you like) has put on there. It really is a terrific book.
    - cityzen 8y ago
      I am definitely reading them but some of them are just references to news stories or articles that I just skim. Not sure if I'm meant to be digging deeper with those. the nonlinear aspect of it all is wonderful.
pmoriarty 8y ago
"Now it just seems like every website online is trying to steal and sell your data." I remember the days before the Morris Worm, the days before we were all drowning in malware, before you had to worry about your bank account being hacked in to, before your personal data stood a good chance of being leaked, stolen, or held for ransom, before the corporate/government gold rush for profit, spying, and control. Spam and the occasional troll seemed to be about the worst one could encounter back then. Maybe I'm just remembering the past through rose-colored nostalgia glasses, but it seemed back in those days the internet was a mostly positive place -- or at least not a hostile one where you had to constantly watch your back and pretend to be who you weren't lest records of your past come back to haunt you. Overnight popularity was the best thing and the worst thing to happen the internet. Perhaps if its growth wasn't so explosive, maybe we could have had time to deal with all the crap. Back in those days we used to laugh at how clueless the corporations and governments were about the net, about how they'd never be able to control it. Well, now they've got us all by the balls. Who's laughing now?
- mturmon 8y ago
  Nice comment. I’m thinking that some technologies, if handled carelessly —— and we have been nothing if not careless —— merely recapitulate existing power structures.
  - spc476 8y ago
    Or that existing power structures figure out how to co-opt technology. Seems to take about 20 years (telegraphs, telephones, radio, television, cars, computers ... )
- drukenemo 8y ago
  Some will say that has been the coveted intention from governments all along.
- hrktb 8y ago
  As usual it depends what you focus on. 20~30 years ago privacy was no issue, you’d actually want to meet people who shared the same communities. But online commerce for instance was for the crazy snd the average netizen would bail in front of a credit card form. In comparison we moved leaps and bounds forward. At its core it was so primitive we had to trust each other, and this meant fun things were funnier, and serious things were harder. I think got balanced where fun things are rarer, and serious stuff became accessible.
personlurking 8y ago
> I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then. I'm several years younger than you, but I started using in the mid-90s and everything you said rings true for me, too. Anyone who grew up after the "Oregon Trail generation" (born in late 70s/early 80s) missed out on this. The internet was frustrating back then, but it was also really interesting.
senorjazz 8y ago
I agree with you and am of a similar age and experience. But how much of the above is because "we were young"?
- soundwave106 8y ago
  Some of it I honestly feel a lot of it is more the deep commercialization of the Internet, frankly. A lot of modern "commercialization" has involved "clickbait" that is designed to produce some sort of emotion (often outrage at frankly incorrect information). This goes beyond the adverts -- a fair bit of Youtube entertainment feels like cheap stunts chasing clicks to me, reminding me more of the type of tactics reality TV engages in than anything else. The Internet of the 2000s was more about blogs (eg Livejournal) and forums (like Something Awful, Fark, etc.). A lot of these were not solely advertiser-driven businesses (LJ and SA in particular relied on premium features for revenue from what I recall) and maybe that's a key difference. True, maybe some of it was because "we were young" -- I am in the same age group. But I dunno -- there was a time when I used Facebook quite a bit as well. This is no longer the case. Yet I'm still on a few obscure phpBB forums that seem quite fine to me.
- cityzen 8y ago
  I don't think much, to be honest. In fact I think the excitement of the 90's and the advent of the internet acted as sort of a fountain of youth for people that didn't want to go the corporate route. I have been an independent consultant for 20 years and have never had to buy into the corporate life because of the freedom the internet gave me coupled with my desire to learn and understand it and share that with people. Now it just feels like everyone is selling something. There used to be a genuine sense of community far and wide but now it just feels like everyone is out for themselves. Blogs are written in a very methodical way to get that sweet SEO juice. Everyone is "witty" and sarcastic, everything is cute and silly to the point that none of it is cute and silly and so contrived that it just feels gross. I seriously sit here some days and think, "does mark zuckerberg have no real self awareness?" I mean, this guy is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with the internet today. I guess when the inevitable shift from the open internet to the corporate internet happened, this is the result. Facebook is a multinational advertising platform, why can't they just admit that? What is wrong with this guy? But the real problem is that Facebook and Google make BILLIONS of dollars doing this. I read an answer to a question on quora awhile back in which someone asked "what's it like to be a millionaire?". The best answer was something along the lines of many people ask this question but what they really want to know is "what is it like to spend a million dollars". I feel like this type of thinking is what is wrong with the internet today. No one wants to start a real business, they just want to start a business to get VC funding. No one wants to figure out how to really write, they want to figure out how to write a blog to make $10,000 a month from affiliate marketing bullshit. Every bit of "friendly" advice I see, I think, "ok, what's the catch here, what are they selling". And you know what? the people that just come out and say, "hey, this is me, this is what i'm selling" are the people that I will gladly give my money to. Sorry for the rant, probably doesn't make a lot of sense but none of this does anymore.
Jemmeh 8y ago
Unsubscribe from r/politics and subscribe to r/writingprompts instead. You get free short stories, a good way to read a little something before bed. Just implement a limit of some sort on yourself. "I'll only read 2 stories per night" or something like that. I keep my reddit super positive: DIY, programming, fitness, wholesomememes, finance. That's the beauty of it, you can control that content. I try to keep HN as my only news source. I still know about the big stuff but I don't get super weighed down. I donate to a charity I know is doing good and focus on what I can do to improve things. I can't fix all the madness in the world but if I focus on a narrow strip of life that I can reach I can have more positive impact than I would sitting around stressed and sad.

charliepark 8y ago

It sounds like you're content being offline more, which is great. If you miss it, though … per your comment that "nothing worked back then but that was part of the experience", you might enjoy seeing if there's a local Homebrew Website Club meeting near you (https://indieweb.org/Homebrew_Website_Club https://indieweb.org/Homebrew_Website_Club). I've gone to a couple meetings of the SF one, and it's a nice, earnest, group of makers, looking to build cool stuff on the internet, independent of corporate efforts "to steal and sell your data". They have a sense of that feeling that "The internet was a mess back then and even though it was frustrating as hell, it was exciting."

cityzen 8y ago
thanks for the info, will definitely check it out!

jakespencer 8y ago

I have nothing interesting to add, except that I literally just stood up from reading House of Leaves in bed before sleep.

cityzen 8y ago
How far are you? Are you reading all of the footnotes? I am so confused about it all but I love it. It has really sparked a curiosity I haven't had in awhile. Btw, have you heard of the book Ship of Theseus? I bought it for my wife and we haven't jumped into it yet but seems similar in that it's a big puzzle: https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Theseus-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642 https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Theseus-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642 (and JJ Abrams if you're a fan)
- eyeundersand 8y ago
  I'm not OP, but I finished House of Leaves a year back and you definitely want to read the footnotes and everything else that Danielewski (or Zampano, if you like) has put on there. It really is a terrific book.
  - cityzen 8y ago
    I am definitely reading them but some of them are just references to news stories or articles that I just skim. Not sure if I'm meant to be digging deeper with those. the nonlinear aspect of it all is wonderful.

pmoriarty 8y ago

"Now it just seems like every website online is trying to steal and sell your data." I remember the days before the Morris Worm, the days before we were all drowning in malware, before you had to worry about your bank account being hacked in to, before your personal data stood a good chance of being leaked, stolen, or held for ransom, before the corporate/government gold rush for profit, spying, and control. Spam and the occasional troll seemed to be about the worst one could encounter back then. Maybe I'm just remembering the past through rose-colored nostalgia glasses, but it seemed back in those days the internet was a mostly positive place -- or at least not a hostile one where you had to constantly watch your back and pretend to be who you weren't lest records of your past come back to haunt you. Overnight popularity was the best thing and the worst thing to happen the internet. Perhaps if its growth wasn't so explosive, maybe we could have had time to deal with all the crap. Back in those days we used to laugh at how clueless the corporations and governments were about the net, about how they'd never be able to control it. Well, now they've got us all by the balls. Who's laughing now?

mturmon 8y ago
Nice comment. I’m thinking that some technologies, if handled carelessly —— and we have been nothing if not careless —— merely recapitulate existing power structures.
- spc476 8y ago
  Or that existing power structures figure out how to co-opt technology. Seems to take about 20 years (telegraphs, telephones, radio, television, cars, computers ... )
drukenemo 8y ago
Some will say that has been the coveted intention from governments all along.
hrktb 8y ago
As usual it depends what you focus on. 20~30 years ago privacy was no issue, you’d actually want to meet people who shared the same communities. But online commerce for instance was for the crazy snd the average netizen would bail in front of a credit card form. In comparison we moved leaps and bounds forward. At its core it was so primitive we had to trust each other, and this meant fun things were funnier, and serious things were harder. I think got balanced where fun things are rarer, and serious stuff became accessible.

personlurking 8y ago

> I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then. I'm several years younger than you, but I started using in the mid-90s and everything you said rings true for me, too. Anyone who grew up after the "Oregon Trail generation" (born in late 70s/early 80s) missed out on this. The internet was frustrating back then, but it was also really interesting.

senorjazz 8y ago

I agree with you and am of a similar age and experience. But how much of the above is because "we were young"?

soundwave106 8y ago
Some of it I honestly feel a lot of it is more the deep commercialization of the Internet, frankly. A lot of modern "commercialization" has involved "clickbait" that is designed to produce some sort of emotion (often outrage at frankly incorrect information). This goes beyond the adverts -- a fair bit of Youtube entertainment feels like cheap stunts chasing clicks to me, reminding me more of the type of tactics reality TV engages in than anything else. The Internet of the 2000s was more about blogs (eg Livejournal) and forums (like Something Awful, Fark, etc.). A lot of these were not solely advertiser-driven businesses (LJ and SA in particular relied on premium features for revenue from what I recall) and maybe that's a key difference. True, maybe some of it was because "we were young" -- I am in the same age group. But I dunno -- there was a time when I used Facebook quite a bit as well. This is no longer the case. Yet I'm still on a few obscure phpBB forums that seem quite fine to me.
cityzen 8y ago
I don't think much, to be honest. In fact I think the excitement of the 90's and the advent of the internet acted as sort of a fountain of youth for people that didn't want to go the corporate route. I have been an independent consultant for 20 years and have never had to buy into the corporate life because of the freedom the internet gave me coupled with my desire to learn and understand it and share that with people. Now it just feels like everyone is selling something. There used to be a genuine sense of community far and wide but now it just feels like everyone is out for themselves. Blogs are written in a very methodical way to get that sweet SEO juice. Everyone is "witty" and sarcastic, everything is cute and silly to the point that none of it is cute and silly and so contrived that it just feels gross. I seriously sit here some days and think, "does mark zuckerberg have no real self awareness?" I mean, this guy is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with the internet today. I guess when the inevitable shift from the open internet to the corporate internet happened, this is the result. Facebook is a multinational advertising platform, why can't they just admit that? What is wrong with this guy? But the real problem is that Facebook and Google make BILLIONS of dollars doing this. I read an answer to a question on quora awhile back in which someone asked "what's it like to be a millionaire?". The best answer was something along the lines of many people ask this question but what they really want to know is "what is it like to spend a million dollars". I feel like this type of thinking is what is wrong with the internet today. No one wants to start a real business, they just want to start a business to get VC funding. No one wants to figure out how to really write, they want to figure out how to write a blog to make $10,000 a month from affiliate marketing bullshit. Every bit of "friendly" advice I see, I think, "ok, what's the catch here, what are they selling". And you know what? the people that just come out and say, "hey, this is me, this is what i'm selling" are the people that I will gladly give my money to. Sorry for the rant, probably doesn't make a lot of sense but none of this does anymore.

Jemmeh 8y ago

Unsubscribe from r/politics and subscribe to r/writingprompts instead. You get free short stories, a good way to read a little something before bed. Just implement a limit of some sort on yourself. "I'll only read 2 stories per night" or something like that. I keep my reddit super positive: DIY, programming, fitness, wholesomememes, finance. That's the beauty of it, you can control that content. I try to keep HN as my only news source. I still know about the big stuff but I don't get super weighed down. I donate to a charity I know is doing good and focus on what I can do to improve things. I can't fix all the madness in the world but if I focus on a narrow strip of life that I can reach I can have more positive impact than I would sitting around stressed and sad.