14 ms·

Wikipedia co-founder slams the ‘appalling’ internet

198 points by L_226 7y ago

GershwinA 7y ago
Thanks for sharing, nothing groundbreaking, but the general principle is there. Modern internet is all about freedom, and sharing, access to info and so own, Wikipedia is a great example of how progressive internet could be. Then there's Facebook that will go miles to access users data, and Trump is tweeting nonsense. I get why people are angry with the state of internet atm.
- pixl97 7y ago
  You mean the wikipedia where a few super users dominate the discussion and delete the rest?
- unreal37 7y ago
  I'm not sure Wikipedia is as "progressive" you think it is. Wikipedia is really poorly governed. Past admins say that the most common solution to any dispute is the "status quo". They just hope that problems go away. That's not progress.
stunt 7y ago
> “A decentralized internet, a freer internet, that’s what led to the internet being created in the place,” What Facebook did to MySpace, may happen to Facebook soon when a good decentralized social network pops up.
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  No, that can't happen to Facebook now the way it happened to MySpace. Facebook has too much money. At this point Facebook and Google essentially own the advertising business on the Internet. With that kind of money, they can just buy competitors.
  - Upvoter33 7y ago
    That is true. Which is why the alternative needs to be grass-roots, good enough, and not for profit. It has to be a mission, rather than a corporation. I am curious to see if this can happen....
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      It will also have to be something cool and exclusive for a while, and not something your dad is allowed to use. That's the thing these "new social networking platforms" are missing: the original cachet of Facebook was that you could only get on it if you had a .edu email address like you would if you were in college. It was cool because college students were on it, sharing their very similar college experiences with each other and basically using it to hook up. Tinder worked very well for 20-somethings as well because they had figured out that 20-somethings are usually not looking for a deep, meaningful relationship right out of the gate. So they required you to tell your story in pictures, and they eliminated the 3000-word deep and meaningful profiles that people still dating in their 30s and 40s are using. So it almost immediately excluded your dad from using it. And it had a lot of cachet because of that exclusivity. The thing that made Google+ not cool was that its major enthusiasts were the kind of insufferable tech dweebs that would take pictures of themselves wearing Google Glass in the shower with their Pixel phone. That's very much a dad thing to do, and it's the wrong kind of exclusivity. So if we want a really good social network to replace Facebook, it has to A) not be full of insufferable tech dweebs, and B) be exclusive by way of not being full of parents on day 1. I'm certainly too old to start something meeting those requirements.
iamsb 7y ago
I agree with Larry about abuse by Facebook and Twitter. I also strongly encourage him to look at state of wikipedia moderations. Specially in a country like India. Lot of pages related to political content is moderated by people who are deeply partisan and have no respect for facts.
- nsajko 7y ago
  Larry Sanger left Wikipedia more than ten years ago, and has been critical of its accuracy for longer than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Do you think he would disagree with you about the problems with Wikipedia moderation? It's not under his control, and it shouldn't be.
  - iamsb 7y ago
    yes but he can create better systems where moderation is not controlled by groups of higher privilege. Essentially, from my limited understanding, it is not possible to take away moderation privileges from individuals. Please feel free to correct me on this.
    - jessriedel 7y ago
      I think even if you had complete control to re-write the Wikipedia system from scratch, creating effective moderation systems is a super challenging. Trying to change the current system given the existing entrenched interest is damn near impossible. If you have a specific system change you thought could and should be made by Sanger, let's hear it (though I won't be able to assess).
      - duskwuff 7y ago
        > If you have a specific system change you thought could and should be made by Sanger As I've tried to point out elsewhere: Mr. Sanger departed from the Wikipedia project in 2002, and, in the time since, has been openly critical of the project. He really isn't in much of a position to make changes to the project he departed from 17 years ago.
throwaway8879 7y ago
I'm going to take a cynical stand and claim that the internet as the greybeards envisioned decades ago is just not going to happen. Or perhaps happened for a short window in the early 2000s. I don't see how we can just turn things around. Something new will pop up in a few years, limited within hacker circles, perhaps in a medium beyond computers/phones. It'll have all the nice qualities that we seek such as privacy, encryption, anonymity, pro-free-speech etc, except that none of those things will last for very long. It too will have it's own eternal September, followed up ad-tech/media/government screwing things up. Lather, rinse, repeat. Any new kind of "internet" that depends on traditional infrastructure that is under the control of states/corporations will end up being exactly like the one we have now.
- canidiarus 7y ago
  The 'Internet' is working as intended. The issue is how HTTP is used and its availability in most consumer devices. Regulation is required, but won't occur with a US congress that is pro-business and anti-consumer. California could regulate companies within its borders, but it would stand to lose that sweet tax revenue on shares and RSU's when they move to a different state.
  - imiric 7y ago
    > The 'Internet' is working as intended. The issue is how HTTP is used and its availability in most consumer devices. I partly put the blame on late 90s web developers for this. Instead of developing web /browsers/, the industry should've built web /communicators/ (one would think Netscape could've figured this out). That is, we should've been using tools that make publishing content on the web as easy as consuming content[1]. If that mindset had been cultivated then and we had user friendly tools to support it, public mentality about sharing content would be different, and after years of improvement we might have a more balanced internet today where each user has full control over their data. Unfortunately, we built web browsers for consumption only, the advertising industry took hold of our business models, which naturally created silos that grew richer and more powerful. We can build and have built better tools, but the inertia of how things work today makes it difficult for alternative platforms to take off. It still makes no sense to me that we use powerful computers to run web clients that send data somewhere on the internet where it is served for me, when the computer I'm using can serve this data just fine (assuming some infrastructure is in place to handle this). [1]: This is something Opera attempted much later in 2009 with Unite (https://dev.opera.com/blog/taking-the-web-into-our-own-hands/ https://dev.opera.com/blog/taking-the-web-into-our-own-hands...), but abandoned it shortly later. I imagine they were missing a lot of network infrastructure and it being too confusing for end-users to make this a success. Are there previous attempts of this in a consumer browser?
everdrive 7y ago
The internet was much nicer before most people were using it. We usually focus on the technology problems here at HN: filter bubbles, skinner box addictive UIs and content feeds, algorithmic and centralized control. Has anyone simply wondered if the problem with the internet is fundamentally that everyone's on it? It used to be an escape from the problems of the real world. Now it's just a new way for the problems of the real world to reach you.
- rolha-capoeira 7y ago
  I hear you. But this teeters dangerously close to gatekeeping, elitism, or something along those lines. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but I think how others feel after reading our comments does matter. Better put, because everyone is on the internet now, the real world's problems are now the internet's problems. It used to serve as an escape, true. It has made the world a smaller place, where problems from a distant state or country can reach me and I can't help but be aware of them. I may even be affected by them. Is that good or bad, for us as individuals or as global citizens? That's heavy stuff.
  - rabidrat 7y ago
    Gatekeeping is the only way communities can keep themselves healthy. There is no such thing as a universal 'community'. From day one, life has been about letting in certain elements, and keeping out others. Without this selection, development and differentiation are impossible. Similarly we don't (and shouldn't) let every person into our homes, or our countries, or our servers. Why is it seen as an obvious truth that we should allow every single person onto the Internet, without ever being able to remove them?
    - krapp 7y ago
      >Why is it seen as an obvious truth that we should allow every single person onto the Internet, without ever being able to remove them? For the same reason it's seen as an obvious truth that everyone should be allowed to use a telephone, or send a letter in the mail. The internet is a communications platform, by definition it belongs to anyone who wants to use it. The internet being used by everyone no more makes the development or differentiation between cultures impossible than the planet Earth being used by everyone does. Also, because the anarchist hacker ethos that led to the internet was about liberating humanity from the constraints of gatekeepers - the systems of governance and proprietary control over access to information and freedom of expression that divided the world between the elite and the serf. What we're seeing now is not that model breaking down, but only beginning to come into its true potential. Yes, there may be negative effects to the ability of the internet to remove the barriers between cultures and communities, even states, but the world would be a lot worse still if it had never left the confines of a few universities simply to keep the normies out. The value of the transformative nature of the internet on civilization itself is greater than the value of the internet monoculture whose relevance it no longer recognizes.
werber 7y ago
I find these rants about social media patronizing, people are aware, they just don't care. It's not whistle blowing, it's self congratulatory yipping at this point. If you want to make a better solution that happens to be decentralized and works with just as little effort, then do it if you actually care rant over
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  You fail to take in to account the Eternal September effect.[1] Some people are aware, but others are not because they're new (or for various other reasons, such as just beginning to get interested, etc), and new people will always be coming along. Also, some people might know but might have forgotten or had their attention shifted to something else. It's good to periodically bring it back. There will always, always be a need to inform people. Providing information and good/better arguments for one's position will always be a valid and valuable service. Acting constructively on that information is also needed, of course, but they're not mutually exclusive. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september
- metabagel 7y ago
  Like this? https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/05/inventor-of-the-web-says-the-internet-is-at-a-tipping-point-and-reveals-a-new-plan-to-fix-it.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/05/inventor-of-the-web-says-the...
- oco101 7y ago
  Well, he did it is called Everipedia witch is a decentralized version of Wikipedia, it is a work in progress still but it getting better by the day.
  - magnamerc 7y ago
    It's on EOS though, a network prone to cartels. Yeah, no thanks.
peterwwillis 7y ago
A lot of people keep declaring the web needs to be more decentralized. I don't think they really have a plan for making things better, though, because decentralized doesn't really mean anything except 'not centralized'. It doesn't mean 'privacy-focused', because the internet is decentralized, and your privacy isn't inherently guaranteed by it. It doesn't addess how to fund online products, which is what drove the systems we have today. It doesn't describe how we're supposed to convince the world to build products that don't exploit people, and aren't used by the powerful against us. Saying we need the web to be more decentralized is like saying we need more transparency in politics. Sounds great, but even if it's more transparent, that doesn't mean more legislation is going to get done, or done better. We need more concrete goals, and to focus less on the means of getting there.
raphaelj 7y ago
Is a decentralized social network really the solution? I'd rather enjoy having a social platform managed for the greater good, by a not-for-profit organization. The Mozilla or Wikimedia of social networks.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Doesn't most of the money supporting both Mozilla and Wikimedia come from search engine companies?
  - raphaelj 7y ago
    Mozilla yes. Wikimedia gets most of its income from donations.
- wslh 7y ago
  > Is a decentralized social network really the solution? I think the question is different: is a decentralized social network possible (with the same features of a centralized one)?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  It is a solution rather than the solution really. It is for solving /your/ problems rather than socety's essentially so it is a matter of use cases.
milansuk 7y ago
I think a big part of the problem is lock-in! How easy is to migrate all your data from one service/app to another? We actually have alternatives across different products, it's just people are lazy or even worse, it's not possible. Facebook exported my data and then what? With an easy way how to move your account data, the best products would win.
qwsxyh 7y ago
I like twitter. I'm in the minority here, but I genuinely do. I keep my timeline curated, I am very very liberal with blocks and mutes of anyone who vaguely annoys me, and I enjoy using it.
- kabwj 7y ago
  I liked Twitter before it was popular. Being liberal with blocks works but eventually you realise you are spending more time curating your experience than actually enjoying the website.
  - qwsxyh 7y ago
    Hardly. I only follow ~50ish people, of which I only interact regularly with ~9ish. I only block a few people a day max.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      I liked Twitter before Twitter decided that advertisers and "trending topics" and virality were more important than personal curation. The out-of-order timeline with forced ads and both Likes and Replies becoming less deterministic retweets were some of the last straws for me.
      - qwsxyh 7y ago
        My timeline is completely in-order and I don't see ads.
        WorldMaker 7y ago
        It's good that ad blockers exist and they added an in-order option back after I left, but the problem remains that the defaults are still anti-curative/pro-advertiser/pro-"engagement metrics". Having such terrible defaults makes the whole social network less trustworthy, because while you might curate your feed, do the people you follow still do? Do the people they follow?
decasteve 7y ago
Avoid the mainstream media, advertising-centric sites, social media, et al, and the Internet is mostly fine. Stick to the niche sites and services that have always been there and it’s a much more pleasant place.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  This! The internet outside of the big tech/media sites is mostly the same - maybe even a bit smaller and more communal. Although there’s no escaping modern advertising without using aggressive ad blocking.
  - arthurcolle 7y ago
    Especially now that you are actually barred from some venues unless you allow them on the whitelist... Hope ad blocking manages to catch up soon.
- polskibus 7y ago
  Any particular niche sites that you have in mind and could recommend to others?
  - jasonjayr 7y ago
    Isn't this antithesis to the issue at hand? These niche places are great exactly because they're hard to find, and the community there grows organically. I'm on HN now because slashdot was flailing years ago, and a friend I knew IRL mentioned it ....
    - giaour 7y ago
      Most of the niche sites I've seen aren't great because they're exclusive but because they're built around a specific interest. Anybody can join, but if they don't share that interest, they'll get bored and leave.
  - almost_usual 7y ago
    I frequent a truck forum that hasn’t changed in years. I’d imagine there are other forums that exist for your special interests. I tend to meet a lot of nice and helpful people there. I probably spend less than five minutes a day on traditional social media which feels toxic in comparison.
cwyers 7y ago
I have really, really soured on Wikipedia over time. I find the site has gotten worse and less compelling, and contributing to it is a massive slough that nobody sane would undertake at this point. This is a decent writeup of some of the issues: https://www.gwern.net/In-Defense-Of-Inclusionism https://www.gwern.net/In-Defense-Of-Inclusionism
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

198 points by L_226 7y ago

Thanks for sharing, nothing groundbreaking, but the general principle is there. Modern internet is all about freedom, and sharing, access to info and so own, Wikipedia is a great example of how progressive internet could be. Then there's Facebook that will go miles to access users data, and Trump is tweeting nonsense. I get why people are angry with the state of internet atm.

pixl97 7y ago
You mean the wikipedia where a few super users dominate the discussion and delete the rest?
unreal37 7y ago
I'm not sure Wikipedia is as "progressive" you think it is. Wikipedia is really poorly governed. Past admins say that the most common solution to any dispute is the "status quo". They just hope that problems go away. That's not progress.

stunt 7y ago

> “A decentralized internet, a freer internet, that’s what led to the internet being created in the place,” What Facebook did to MySpace, may happen to Facebook soon when a good decentralized social network pops up.

metalliqaz 7y ago
No, that can't happen to Facebook now the way it happened to MySpace. Facebook has too much money. At this point Facebook and Google essentially own the advertising business on the Internet. With that kind of money, they can just buy competitors.
- Upvoter33 7y ago
  That is true. Which is why the alternative needs to be grass-roots, good enough, and not for profit. It has to be a mission, rather than a corporation. I am curious to see if this can happen....
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    It will also have to be something cool and exclusive for a while, and not something your dad is allowed to use. That's the thing these "new social networking platforms" are missing: the original cachet of Facebook was that you could only get on it if you had a .edu email address like you would if you were in college. It was cool because college students were on it, sharing their very similar college experiences with each other and basically using it to hook up. Tinder worked very well for 20-somethings as well because they had figured out that 20-somethings are usually not looking for a deep, meaningful relationship right out of the gate. So they required you to tell your story in pictures, and they eliminated the 3000-word deep and meaningful profiles that people still dating in their 30s and 40s are using. So it almost immediately excluded your dad from using it. And it had a lot of cachet because of that exclusivity. The thing that made Google+ not cool was that its major enthusiasts were the kind of insufferable tech dweebs that would take pictures of themselves wearing Google Glass in the shower with their Pixel phone. That's very much a dad thing to do, and it's the wrong kind of exclusivity. So if we want a really good social network to replace Facebook, it has to A) not be full of insufferable tech dweebs, and B) be exclusive by way of not being full of parents on day 1. I'm certainly too old to start something meeting those requirements.

iamsb 7y ago

I agree with Larry about abuse by Facebook and Twitter. I also strongly encourage him to look at state of wikipedia moderations. Specially in a country like India. Lot of pages related to political content is moderated by people who are deeply partisan and have no respect for facts.

nsajko 7y ago
Larry Sanger left Wikipedia more than ten years ago, and has been critical of its accuracy for longer than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger
jessriedel 7y ago
Do you think he would disagree with you about the problems with Wikipedia moderation? It's not under his control, and it shouldn't be.
- iamsb 7y ago
  yes but he can create better systems where moderation is not controlled by groups of higher privilege. Essentially, from my limited understanding, it is not possible to take away moderation privileges from individuals. Please feel free to correct me on this.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    I think even if you had complete control to re-write the Wikipedia system from scratch, creating effective moderation systems is a super challenging. Trying to change the current system given the existing entrenched interest is damn near impossible. If you have a specific system change you thought could and should be made by Sanger, let's hear it (though I won't be able to assess).
    - duskwuff 7y ago
      > If you have a specific system change you thought could and should be made by Sanger As I've tried to point out elsewhere: Mr. Sanger departed from the Wikipedia project in 2002, and, in the time since, has been openly critical of the project. He really isn't in much of a position to make changes to the project he departed from 17 years ago.

throwaway8879 7y ago

I'm going to take a cynical stand and claim that the internet as the greybeards envisioned decades ago is just not going to happen. Or perhaps happened for a short window in the early 2000s. I don't see how we can just turn things around. Something new will pop up in a few years, limited within hacker circles, perhaps in a medium beyond computers/phones. It'll have all the nice qualities that we seek such as privacy, encryption, anonymity, pro-free-speech etc, except that none of those things will last for very long. It too will have it's own eternal September, followed up ad-tech/media/government screwing things up. Lather, rinse, repeat. Any new kind of "internet" that depends on traditional infrastructure that is under the control of states/corporations will end up being exactly like the one we have now.

canidiarus 7y ago
The 'Internet' is working as intended. The issue is how HTTP is used and its availability in most consumer devices. Regulation is required, but won't occur with a US congress that is pro-business and anti-consumer. California could regulate companies within its borders, but it would stand to lose that sweet tax revenue on shares and RSU's when they move to a different state.
- imiric 7y ago
  > The 'Internet' is working as intended. The issue is how HTTP is used and its availability in most consumer devices. I partly put the blame on late 90s web developers for this. Instead of developing web /browsers/, the industry should've built web /communicators/ (one would think Netscape could've figured this out). That is, we should've been using tools that make publishing content on the web as easy as consuming content[1]. If that mindset had been cultivated then and we had user friendly tools to support it, public mentality about sharing content would be different, and after years of improvement we might have a more balanced internet today where each user has full control over their data. Unfortunately, we built web browsers for consumption only, the advertising industry took hold of our business models, which naturally created silos that grew richer and more powerful. We can build and have built better tools, but the inertia of how things work today makes it difficult for alternative platforms to take off. It still makes no sense to me that we use powerful computers to run web clients that send data somewhere on the internet where it is served for me, when the computer I'm using can serve this data just fine (assuming some infrastructure is in place to handle this). [1]: This is something Opera attempted much later in 2009 with Unite (https://dev.opera.com/blog/taking-the-web-into-our-own-hands/ https://dev.opera.com/blog/taking-the-web-into-our-own-hands...), but abandoned it shortly later. I imagine they were missing a lot of network infrastructure and it being too confusing for end-users to make this a success. Are there previous attempts of this in a consumer browser?

everdrive 7y ago

The internet was much nicer before most people were using it. We usually focus on the technology problems here at HN: filter bubbles, skinner box addictive UIs and content feeds, algorithmic and centralized control. Has anyone simply wondered if the problem with the internet is fundamentally that everyone's on it? It used to be an escape from the problems of the real world. Now it's just a new way for the problems of the real world to reach you.

rolha-capoeira 7y ago
I hear you. But this teeters dangerously close to gatekeeping, elitism, or something along those lines. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but I think how others feel after reading our comments does matter. Better put, because everyone is on the internet now, the real world's problems are now the internet's problems. It used to serve as an escape, true. It has made the world a smaller place, where problems from a distant state or country can reach me and I can't help but be aware of them. I may even be affected by them. Is that good or bad, for us as individuals or as global citizens? That's heavy stuff.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  Gatekeeping is the only way communities can keep themselves healthy. There is no such thing as a universal 'community'. From day one, life has been about letting in certain elements, and keeping out others. Without this selection, development and differentiation are impossible. Similarly we don't (and shouldn't) let every person into our homes, or our countries, or our servers. Why is it seen as an obvious truth that we should allow every single person onto the Internet, without ever being able to remove them?
  - krapp 7y ago
    >Why is it seen as an obvious truth that we should allow every single person onto the Internet, without ever being able to remove them? For the same reason it's seen as an obvious truth that everyone should be allowed to use a telephone, or send a letter in the mail. The internet is a communications platform, by definition it belongs to anyone who wants to use it. The internet being used by everyone no more makes the development or differentiation between cultures impossible than the planet Earth being used by everyone does. Also, because the anarchist hacker ethos that led to the internet was about liberating humanity from the constraints of gatekeepers - the systems of governance and proprietary control over access to information and freedom of expression that divided the world between the elite and the serf. What we're seeing now is not that model breaking down, but only beginning to come into its true potential. Yes, there may be negative effects to the ability of the internet to remove the barriers between cultures and communities, even states, but the world would be a lot worse still if it had never left the confines of a few universities simply to keep the normies out. The value of the transformative nature of the internet on civilization itself is greater than the value of the internet monoculture whose relevance it no longer recognizes.

werber 7y ago

I find these rants about social media patronizing, people are aware, they just don't care. It's not whistle blowing, it's self congratulatory yipping at this point. If you want to make a better solution that happens to be decentralized and works with just as little effort, then do it if you actually care rant over

pmoriarty 7y ago
You fail to take in to account the Eternal September effect.[1] Some people are aware, but others are not because they're new (or for various other reasons, such as just beginning to get interested, etc), and new people will always be coming along. Also, some people might know but might have forgotten or had their attention shifted to something else. It's good to periodically bring it back. There will always, always be a need to inform people. Providing information and good/better arguments for one's position will always be a valid and valuable service. Acting constructively on that information is also needed, of course, but they're not mutually exclusive. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september
metabagel 7y ago
Like this? https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/05/inventor-of-the-web-says-the-internet-is-at-a-tipping-point-and-reveals-a-new-plan-to-fix-it.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/05/inventor-of-the-web-says-the...
oco101 7y ago
Well, he did it is called Everipedia witch is a decentralized version of Wikipedia, it is a work in progress still but it getting better by the day.
- magnamerc 7y ago
  It's on EOS though, a network prone to cartels. Yeah, no thanks.

peterwwillis 7y ago

A lot of people keep declaring the web needs to be more decentralized. I don't think they really have a plan for making things better, though, because decentralized doesn't really mean anything except 'not centralized'. It doesn't mean 'privacy-focused', because the internet is decentralized, and your privacy isn't inherently guaranteed by it. It doesn't addess how to fund online products, which is what drove the systems we have today. It doesn't describe how we're supposed to convince the world to build products that don't exploit people, and aren't used by the powerful against us. Saying we need the web to be more decentralized is like saying we need more transparency in politics. Sounds great, but even if it's more transparent, that doesn't mean more legislation is going to get done, or done better. We need more concrete goals, and to focus less on the means of getting there.

raphaelj 7y ago

Is a decentralized social network really the solution? I'd rather enjoy having a social platform managed for the greater good, by a not-for-profit organization. The Mozilla or Wikimedia of social networks.

dboreham 7y ago
Doesn't most of the money supporting both Mozilla and Wikimedia come from search engine companies?
- raphaelj 7y ago
  Mozilla yes. Wikimedia gets most of its income from donations.
wslh 7y ago
> Is a decentralized social network really the solution? I think the question is different: is a decentralized social network possible (with the same features of a centralized one)?
Nasrudith 7y ago
It is a solution rather than the solution really. It is for solving /your/ problems rather than socety's essentially so it is a matter of use cases.

milansuk 7y ago

I think a big part of the problem is lock-in! How easy is to migrate all your data from one service/app to another? We actually have alternatives across different products, it's just people are lazy or even worse, it's not possible. Facebook exported my data and then what? With an easy way how to move your account data, the best products would win.

qwsxyh 7y ago

I like twitter. I'm in the minority here, but I genuinely do. I keep my timeline curated, I am very very liberal with blocks and mutes of anyone who vaguely annoys me, and I enjoy using it.

kabwj 7y ago
I liked Twitter before it was popular. Being liberal with blocks works but eventually you realise you are spending more time curating your experience than actually enjoying the website.
- qwsxyh 7y ago
  Hardly. I only follow ~50ish people, of which I only interact regularly with ~9ish. I only block a few people a day max.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    I liked Twitter before Twitter decided that advertisers and "trending topics" and virality were more important than personal curation. The out-of-order timeline with forced ads and both Likes and Replies becoming less deterministic retweets were some of the last straws for me.
    - qwsxyh 7y ago
      My timeline is completely in-order and I don't see ads.
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        It's good that ad blockers exist and they added an in-order option back after I left, but the problem remains that the defaults are still anti-curative/pro-advertiser/pro-"engagement metrics". Having such terrible defaults makes the whole social network less trustworthy, because while you might curate your feed, do the people you follow still do? Do the people they follow?

decasteve 7y ago

Avoid the mainstream media, advertising-centric sites, social media, et al, and the Internet is mostly fine. Stick to the niche sites and services that have always been there and it’s a much more pleasant place.

merpnderp 7y ago
This! The internet outside of the big tech/media sites is mostly the same - maybe even a bit smaller and more communal. Although there’s no escaping modern advertising without using aggressive ad blocking.
- arthurcolle 7y ago
  Especially now that you are actually barred from some venues unless you allow them on the whitelist... Hope ad blocking manages to catch up soon.
polskibus 7y ago
Any particular niche sites that you have in mind and could recommend to others?
- jasonjayr 7y ago
  Isn't this antithesis to the issue at hand? These niche places are great exactly because they're hard to find, and the community there grows organically. I'm on HN now because slashdot was flailing years ago, and a friend I knew IRL mentioned it ....
  - giaour 7y ago
    Most of the niche sites I've seen aren't great because they're exclusive but because they're built around a specific interest. Anybody can join, but if they don't share that interest, they'll get bored and leave.
- almost_usual 7y ago
  I frequent a truck forum that hasn’t changed in years. I’d imagine there are other forums that exist for your special interests. I tend to meet a lot of nice and helpful people there. I probably spend less than five minutes a day on traditional social media which feels toxic in comparison.

cwyers 7y ago

I have really, really soured on Wikipedia over time. I find the site has gotten worse and less compelling, and contributing to it is a massive slough that nobody sane would undertake at this point. This is a decent writeup of some of the issues: https://www.gwern.net/In-Defense-Of-Inclusionism https://www.gwern.net/In-Defense-Of-Inclusionism

deleted 7y ago

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