6 ms·
An indirect answer, by way of analogy: I chose my house because of the walking trail behind it. One of my neighbors really loves the walking trail too, but he
by csours 8y ago
An indirect answer, by way of analogy:
I chose my house because of the walking trail behind it. One of my neighbors really loves the walking trail too, but he hates the fact that the city took it over and made it a public park. He hates the fact that it is improved and there is parking because now other people use it too (See also Eternal September).
My neighbor also hates the stores that came in on the edge of the park and cleared the brush between the park and the roads. Plenty of people drive on those roads, and visit those stores and never know that the park is there.
I feel like the internet is very similar: The old part is still there, but most people use the stores, roads, and gathering places next to it instead of visiting it.
- KingMachiavelli 8y agoI think this is a useful analogy since while the old part is still here it is extremely vulnerable to the passing ill informed laws and sadly most people won't notice when it is gone.
- comboy 8y agoI would add that you could meet people on this walking trail who enjoy peace and nature and who aren't there anymore. Or if they are, they are mixed with others so you can't just say hi and have a moment together just based on the fact that you both know this trail. People used to have personal pages, not just blogs, often trying to share their knowledge and notes on different topics. I miss that. Plus casual IRC.
- greenyoda 8y agoSome people still have personal pages. Here are some that I've run into while reading HN: https://www.gwern.net https://www.gwern.net https://bellard.org https://bellard.org
- njarboe 8y agoA search engine for only pages catered by an individual and not a company would be very cool. The first PageRank patent recently expired[1], so one could use the early Google methods for setting up such a thing. I thought early google was great and much better than today's.
- toyg 8y agoSay hello to Stephanie Kowalski, spammer-generated bot with a homepage entirely dedicated to the joys of essential oils.
- ghettoimp 8y agoYes. This is exactly what would happen. It is sad.
- asdff 8y agoAutomatic aggregation can always be manipulated by advertising, no matter how its served up. Filtering is essential.
- tastroder 8y agoI occasionally feel like that already happened. Looking at quite a few modern social networks, like Instagram, "success" and engagement on many of these platforms seems to follow many of the same rules people use for SEO in regular websites. From an outside perspective much of the difference between many influencer or aggregation accounts and a bot with nice imagery escapes me. (Although I realize much of that is just me being old and grumpy and the difference is likely the community around those figures that I am simply not a part of)
- njarboe 8y agoI wonder if it was a paid search portal owned by someone that did not feel the need to maximize profits could do a much better job? Like Craigslist worked well for a long time.
- toyg 8y agoThat exists already, it’s called Facebook.
- acct1771 8y agoBlogspot, and then Blogger, were bastions of spam. What's it matter?
- WalterBright 8y agoI still have my personal page: https://www.walterbright.com https://www.walterbright.com It hasn't changed much for 20 years :-)
- andrejc 8y agoReminded me of a blog post from 2000, written by a disheartened techie during dot-com era. Here is what she wrote about the "dot-com" people: "They don't have personal sites. They don't want personal sites. They don't get personal sites. They don't get personal." Here is the full post: https://megnut.com/2000/04/14/ive-been-thinking-a-lot/ https://megnut.com/2000/04/14/ive-been-thinking-a-lot/
- liotier 8y agoThere is a mountain in the alps where I used to hike in the winter, cross-country with ski skins - a day outing with excellent fresh snow. Few people had the skills or equipment to get there - it felt exclusive, we had fun and the people we met there sometimes and exchanged a few words with were always excellent people just like us. On summiting we used to add a stone to the cairn. Now there is a ski resort, with cable car going to the summit. Every day thousands of people of all stripes enjoy the wonderful view, have fun in the good and well groomed snow on the marked pistes - with the convenience of a heated shop for snacks & souvenirs... Cue Dire Strait's Telegraph Road...
- pesmhey 8y ago>it felt exclusive You can definitely recreate the feeling of exclusivity today on the internet.
- ndnxhs 8y agoLots of invite only websites around that have really great communities. Getting in can be a bit hard but once you are in they tend to cross invite to other invite only sites.
- atmosx 8y agoCan you name four?
- ndnxhs 8y agolobster.rs - invite only tech site. More focused in tech than hacker news and less business/troll comments. tildes.net - similar to reddit but with a heavy focus on no memes/fluff posts RED - great music and general forum with next to no bait/troll posts. There are lots more but those are the ones I personally enjoy.
- random_kris 8y agocan you gimme invite code for tildes.net ? sounds interesting
- TomMckenny 8y agoIt's a good analogy but... The corporate web is an "improvement" on the decentralized web only in the way ice-cream is an improvement on vegetables.
- csours 8y agoOh, indeed, and a lot of people hate improved trails as well.
- TomMckenny 8y agoHiking trails don't monetize your every click. A better analogy is Henry Ford's hyper tidy and closely monitored neighborhoods built for his workers. Some didn't like it.
- agumonkey 8y agoit's a very common feeling; something pure when small evaporates when public. At least it didn't become a new layer for life like internet is.. it's a weird money making machine now.. it spoils almost everything. And to an extent, I wish the world was not trying to give everything to everyone. I think it's more beautiful for things to be small and wild and only those who really connect to it live there.