4 ms·

Internet data connection might be mainstream, but Internet, as in websites, blogs, genuine, independent content, is really not. There are places where the inte

by pmlnr 8y ago

Internet data connection might be mainstream, but Internet, as in websites, blogs, genuine, independent content, is really not. There are places where the internet is Facebook. I remember times when the internet was a blue E on the desktop, but at least that really did take people to the internet, and not a walled garden.

dpark 8y ago
The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. Yes, there exist people who essentially only use Facebook, but this is not the norm. Google is worth 755 billion dollars, and they didn’t get there just by being the easiest way to find Facebook. Pinterest has amassed a 12 billion dollar valuation just for managing to insert themselves between Google search results and a the billion blogs you think most people don’t even know about.
- jolmg 8y ago
  > The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. I don't think he meant that, but rather the opposite. That while more people use the internet than ever before, they're subdivided in how they use it. To some people (not most; pmlnr's wording is "there are places") the internet is just Facebook, and that creates the effect of a smaller community of "internet users" where there is more in common between a pair of individuals than 2 strangers with vastly different uses of the real vast internet. Note that the point of his post was to counter (though it doesn't entirely refute) the point of mseebach, which was that people had much less in common between strangers in the internet now that it's become mainstream.
  - dpark 8y ago
    It's very much what he said. "Internet data connection might be mainstream, but Internet, as in websites, blogs, genuine, independent content, is really not." He specifically says that using the internet for blogs and websites (i.e. things other than Facebook) is not "mainstream". Maybe the Facebook comment was not intended to say that's what the "mainstream" use case is, but that's how it reads, and I'm frankly not sure what mainstream usage would be if it's not "websites".
    - pmlnr 8y ago
      There are countries and providers where free phone data is facebook and maybe a few other providers - see internet.org . For them, facebook, witn instant articles, is the internet, having no actual data connection. Like it or not, the general public uses fb/google or wechat, maybe, but only maybe, read a few news site, do banking, even less buy things on amazon, which, out of US, UK and DE rather nonexistent, and that's it. Think outside of the US, please.
      - jolmg 8y ago
        While what you say is true, I can't see what this has to do with the US. For all we know, dpark might not even be in the US.
      - dpark 8y ago
        4 billion people have internet connectivity. 2 billion use Facebook. Literally half the people with internet connectivity do not use Facebook at all, much less exclusively.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      I can see how you can interpret that sentence in isolation as talking about websites in general. In fact, I'm not sure why I didn't interpret it that way first, too, but I interpreted it as talking about particular websites. In other words, it's not about HTTP vs FTP or IRC, but e.g. Facebook vs Twitter or StackOverflow or allrecipes.com. I probably read it like that because of his following paragraph, which talks about how particular websites have this "walled garden" feel and how some people don't move much away from them to the point that they consider these particular websites to be the whole internet. Since the topic of this subthread is about how people of the internet have less in common now that it's become mainstream, that interpretation seemed to contribute better by raising the point that, to many people whose interpretation of the internet is a "walled garden" like Facebook, their "internet" has not become mainstream, or at least not on the level of the "internet data connection" or the real internet.
- whoaminow 8y ago
  Actually it's not that absurd, Facebook has deals with mobile carriers which gives the users cheaper or even free access to Facebook compare to other "normal websites and apps".

by pmlnr 8y ago

dpark 8y ago

The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. Yes, there exist people who essentially only use Facebook, but this is not the norm. Google is worth 755 billion dollars, and they didn’t get there just by being the easiest way to find Facebook. Pinterest has amassed a 12 billion dollar valuation just for managing to insert themselves between Google search results and a the billion blogs you think most people don’t even know about.

jolmg 8y ago
> The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. I don't think he meant that, but rather the opposite. That while more people use the internet than ever before, they're subdivided in how they use it. To some people (not most; pmlnr's wording is "there are places") the internet is just Facebook, and that creates the effect of a smaller community of "internet users" where there is more in common between a pair of individuals than 2 strangers with vastly different uses of the real vast internet. Note that the point of his post was to counter (though it doesn't entirely refute) the point of mseebach, which was that people had much less in common between strangers in the internet now that it's become mainstream.
- dpark 8y ago
  It's very much what he said. "Internet data connection might be mainstream, but Internet, as in websites, blogs, genuine, independent content, is really not." He specifically says that using the internet for blogs and websites (i.e. things other than Facebook) is not "mainstream". Maybe the Facebook comment was not intended to say that's what the "mainstream" use case is, but that's how it reads, and I'm frankly not sure what mainstream usage would be if it's not "websites".
  - pmlnr 8y ago
    There are countries and providers where free phone data is facebook and maybe a few other providers - see internet.org . For them, facebook, witn instant articles, is the internet, having no actual data connection. Like it or not, the general public uses fb/google or wechat, maybe, but only maybe, read a few news site, do banking, even less buy things on amazon, which, out of US, UK and DE rather nonexistent, and that's it. Think outside of the US, please.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      While what you say is true, I can't see what this has to do with the US. For all we know, dpark might not even be in the US.
    - dpark 8y ago
      4 billion people have internet connectivity. 2 billion use Facebook. Literally half the people with internet connectivity do not use Facebook at all, much less exclusively.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    I can see how you can interpret that sentence in isolation as talking about websites in general. In fact, I'm not sure why I didn't interpret it that way first, too, but I interpreted it as talking about particular websites. In other words, it's not about HTTP vs FTP or IRC, but e.g. Facebook vs Twitter or StackOverflow or allrecipes.com. I probably read it like that because of his following paragraph, which talks about how particular websites have this "walled garden" feel and how some people don't move much away from them to the point that they consider these particular websites to be the whole internet. Since the topic of this subthread is about how people of the internet have less in common now that it's become mainstream, that interpretation seemed to contribute better by raising the point that, to many people whose interpretation of the internet is a "walled garden" like Facebook, their "internet" has not become mainstream, or at least not on the level of the "internet data connection" or the real internet.
whoaminow 8y ago
Actually it's not that absurd, Facebook has deals with mobile carriers which gives the users cheaper or even free access to Facebook compare to other "normal websites and apps".