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> There’s a lingering hope among people who are Extremely Online that the internet will somehow right itself and again become the place of bizarre daily delight

by lqet 8y ago

> There’s a lingering hope among people who are Extremely Online that the internet will somehow right itself and again become the place of bizarre daily delights that made it so engaging in the first place. Those days may be gone forever. Meh. Just because a big part of the internet really is like the "torture chamber" of Clockwork Orange doesn't mean the internet of the early 2000s is gone. I used to hang out in some forums as a young teenager, and these forums are still there, and active. All of the IRC channels I was active in 2002 are still there. I can still use ICQ to send messages to people I now know for over 20 years. You can still spin up a personal homepage with nearly the exact amount of work as in 2001 (at least in Germany, you had to be very careful regarding legal issues even back then). It may be buried under a ton of shit (read: ton of tweets), but the internet of 2000 is still very much there.

everdev 8y ago
> a big part of the internet really is like the "torture chamber" of Clockwork Orange Is it? My daily rounds almost never encounter anything like that.
- lqet 8y ago
  Then you have either developed an immunity, or you are proofing my point: since it is possibly to move around in a sane, creative and/or interesting subset of the internet, the internet from 20 years ago is still out there :) On a side note: this "good" internet may be hard to find, but don't forget that for the majority of the population even in highly developed countries, it was still uncommon to have access to the internet at home 20 years ago, so it was "hard" to find the good internet also back then. This is somewhat thought provoking, as it seems to indicate that the "good" parts of the internet were, and are, elitist circles.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
thatoneuser 8y ago
Everyone likes to say you can go back and do things like they did in 2000 but it's never going to take away the fact that there is more stuff out there. Back in the day this "old internet" was all there was. There was no outside influence and the rules were all just being made. Now even if you go to old forums you can't help but see the influence they've taken on from the "new internet". It's like growing up. Even if you're immortal you're only growing up once.

by lqet 8y ago

everdev 8y ago

> a big part of the internet really is like the "torture chamber" of Clockwork Orange Is it? My daily rounds almost never encounter anything like that.

lqet 8y ago
Then you have either developed an immunity, or you are proofing my point: since it is possibly to move around in a sane, creative and/or interesting subset of the internet, the internet from 20 years ago is still out there :) On a side note: this "good" internet may be hard to find, but don't forget that for the majority of the population even in highly developed countries, it was still uncommon to have access to the internet at home 20 years ago, so it was "hard" to find the good internet also back then. This is somewhat thought provoking, as it seems to indicate that the "good" parts of the internet were, and are, elitist circles.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

thatoneuser 8y ago

Everyone likes to say you can go back and do things like they did in 2000 but it's never going to take away the fact that there is more stuff out there. Back in the day this "old internet" was all there was. There was no outside influence and the rules were all just being made. Now even if you go to old forums you can't help but see the influence they've taken on from the "new internet". It's like growing up. Even if you're immortal you're only growing up once.