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Communities do still exist online although their flavor has changed. Group chat has essentially replaced the chatrooms and IRC channels of the mid 90s-00s. Pre

Communities do still exist online although their flavor has changed. Group chat has essentially replaced the chatrooms and IRC channels of the mid 90s-00s. Pre 90s is too old for me, but I remember seeing pining for "days of gopher/usenet" etc during the 00's, so really everyone has always been pining for this or that. I don't mind it, people will always be nostalgic in some sense. I was nostalgic for high school in college, and I'm somewhat nostalgic for college now, so it's probably valuable to not take hindsight's insight too seriously. That said, the internet has not been the democratizing force most of us believed it would become with curated and centralized social networks having arisen as dominant. I am convinced that this is still a fact that can be discerned distinct of the nostalgic pining. Individuals are pushing back a little (not consciously perhaps) by opting for groups/smaller circles of friends and interests.

stcredzero 8y ago
I don't mind it, people will always be nostalgic in some sense. It's not just nostalgia. There's simply more control and oppression, and less spirit of free inquiry nowadays. Individuals are pushing back (a little not consciously) by opting for groups/smaller circles of friends and interests. People familiar with North Korea have noted a similar withdrawal there to one's family and friends. While big tech and social media companies are far from murderous, they are getting more authoritarian.
ACS_Solver 8y ago
There's definitely some nostalgia involved, but I feel some things from the previous Internet have been lost. Discord communities are at least a reasonable approximation of the old IRC channels, and there are other modern analogs to "old Internet" things, but the forum format is something that I feel has died, and I miss that a lot. Perhaps the main difference between forums and modern sites like Reddit, or Facebook groups, is that forums were a natural fit for slower, longer in-depth conversations. It's normal to have a forum conversation that lasts days, if not weeks, and where the posts all consist of many paragraphs. A site like Reddit is designed for older posts to sink. Same with anything that employs a "news feed" page format. Yes, forums are still around, but they're a shadow of their former selves, and often seem to have an old userbase.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I'm a member of at least half a dozen phpBB forums right now. They do still exist. Even if Reddit is more popular, remember that forums in 1998 didn't have millions of members either.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  Reddit has slowly died though as it has become a much more popular site. The people I used to enjoy interacting with have slowly gravitated away, while the quality of the average comment has significantly degraded. HN isn't a great replacement either, but outside of a handful of small subreddits I have found myself frequenting it more.

stcredzero 8y ago

I don't mind it, people will always be nostalgic in some sense. It's not just nostalgia. There's simply more control and oppression, and less spirit of free inquiry nowadays. Individuals are pushing back (a little not consciously) by opting for groups/smaller circles of friends and interests. People familiar with North Korea have noted a similar withdrawal there to one's family and friends. While big tech and social media companies are far from murderous, they are getting more authoritarian.

ACS_Solver 8y ago

There's definitely some nostalgia involved, but I feel some things from the previous Internet have been lost. Discord communities are at least a reasonable approximation of the old IRC channels, and there are other modern analogs to "old Internet" things, but the forum format is something that I feel has died, and I miss that a lot. Perhaps the main difference between forums and modern sites like Reddit, or Facebook groups, is that forums were a natural fit for slower, longer in-depth conversations. It's normal to have a forum conversation that lasts days, if not weeks, and where the posts all consist of many paragraphs. A site like Reddit is designed for older posts to sink. Same with anything that employs a "news feed" page format. Yes, forums are still around, but they're a shadow of their former selves, and often seem to have an old userbase.

freehunter 8y ago
I'm a member of at least half a dozen phpBB forums right now. They do still exist. Even if Reddit is more popular, remember that forums in 1998 didn't have millions of members either.
StudentStuff 8y ago
Reddit has slowly died though as it has become a much more popular site. The people I used to enjoy interacting with have slowly gravitated away, while the quality of the average comment has significantly degraded. HN isn't a great replacement either, but outside of a handful of small subreddits I have found myself frequenting it more.