4 ms·

> Maybe it's the wrong mindset, but imo compensation is precisely why the internet stopped being like that. When people are doing things for free, there is gene

by pmlnr 7y ago

> Maybe it's the wrong mindset, but imo compensation is precisely why the internet stopped being like that. When people are doing things for free, there is generally a maximum to the amount of effort they will put into things. It's the other way around. When there is no compensation, people do stuff for fun, out of love, and not for optimisation, ROI, DAU/MAU, etc. "Back in the days" - pre-dot-com - the website was part of the hobby. People wanted to put their knowledge out there, maybe for pride, maybe just "why not?". And the site was theirs, it looked the way they wanted, it was organised they way they were thinking[^1]. But when money comes in, one has to deal with making more visitors, making the site according to trends, with negative space material auto dark/light design, constantly and regularly put in updates, add JSON-LD microdata... it's endless. And the fun dies. On platforms, everything looks the same, it doesn't feel like a home any more, it's not yours. It's a job. This is what kills quirky, niche little sites and communities. [^1]: https://stackingthebricks.com/how-blogs-broke-the-web/ https://stackingthebricks.com/how-blogs-broke-the-web/

jefftk 7y ago
My experience is people generally do different things when it's out of interest. More going deep on whatever their passion is, less of everything else. So you get ugly sites with interesting essays, or beautiful data visualization but no text for search engines to use to know to send people to the page. I really liked https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/the-costs-of-reliability/ https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/the-costs-of-r... on this. I also think (though don't have the numbers) that there are many more hobby sites now than there were in, say, 1995, because the whole web is so much bigger. They're just far smaller portion of what you're likely to encounter.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pmlnr 7y ago
  > I also think (though don't have the numbers) that there are many more hobby sites now than there were in, say, 1995, because the whole web is so much bigger. I severely doubt this. 1995-2004(?), essentially pre-myspace, was an era when many of us had a homepage as a hobby; some went into blogging as well, but still on their own site. Compare it to the web today: everyone is posting content* on silos and a most don't event bother thinking of a website. Convenience, they say, but reality is that everyone thinks they might be able to make a living out of that hobby. Let me quote a comment from this very site: "It's a shame to ruin a perfectly good hobby by making it a job." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728367 * "content" in the context of silos is a tricky thing to be honest. When was the last time you saw real, true, honest content, without an agenda, without cat videos, without selfies, on a modern content silo? When I say modern, I mean Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; WordPress and Tumblr are different, being more like providers of websites.
  - jefftk 7y ago
    It sounds like you're talking about relative numbers, and I have no disagreement there, but I'm talking about absolute numbers. There just weren't that many people online in 1995, so even a large fraction then can easily be less than a very small fraction now. I know lots of people with websites (ex: my own, https://jefftk.com https://jefftk.com) and a lot of this is it's so much easier and cheaper now. You don't have to be a sysadmin or be friends with one, domains cost 10x less than they used to, many more people have internet access, etc. > When was the last time you saw real, true, honest content, without an agenda, without cat videos, without selfies, on a modern content silo? I think it depends a lot who your friends are, what subcultures you're in, and how you choose who to follow. My Facebook feed is mostly my friends talking about interesting things and I like it a lot.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - jammygit 7y ago
      My Facebook feed had been friends posting memes and angry political stories since 2010. I deleted it
      - jefftk 7y ago
        Deleting it is one option, but another is teaching FB to show you posts by friends who have more interesting things to say. This has worked well for me, though I also expect it depends on your friends and how they use FB.

by pmlnr 7y ago

jefftk 7y ago

My experience is people generally do different things when it's out of interest. More going deep on whatever their passion is, less of everything else. So you get ugly sites with interesting essays, or beautiful data visualization but no text for search engines to use to know to send people to the page. I really liked https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/the-costs-of-reliability/ https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/the-costs-of-r... on this. I also think (though don't have the numbers) that there are many more hobby sites now than there were in, say, 1995, because the whole web is so much bigger. They're just far smaller portion of what you're likely to encounter.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pmlnr 7y ago
> I also think (though don't have the numbers) that there are many more hobby sites now than there were in, say, 1995, because the whole web is so much bigger. I severely doubt this. 1995-2004(?), essentially pre-myspace, was an era when many of us had a homepage as a hobby; some went into blogging as well, but still on their own site. Compare it to the web today: everyone is posting content* on silos and a most don't event bother thinking of a website. Convenience, they say, but reality is that everyone thinks they might be able to make a living out of that hobby. Let me quote a comment from this very site: "It's a shame to ruin a perfectly good hobby by making it a job." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728367 * "content" in the context of silos is a tricky thing to be honest. When was the last time you saw real, true, honest content, without an agenda, without cat videos, without selfies, on a modern content silo? When I say modern, I mean Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; WordPress and Tumblr are different, being more like providers of websites.
- jefftk 7y ago
  It sounds like you're talking about relative numbers, and I have no disagreement there, but I'm talking about absolute numbers. There just weren't that many people online in 1995, so even a large fraction then can easily be less than a very small fraction now. I know lots of people with websites (ex: my own, https://jefftk.com https://jefftk.com) and a lot of this is it's so much easier and cheaper now. You don't have to be a sysadmin or be friends with one, domains cost 10x less than they used to, many more people have internet access, etc. > When was the last time you saw real, true, honest content, without an agenda, without cat videos, without selfies, on a modern content silo? I think it depends a lot who your friends are, what subcultures you're in, and how you choose who to follow. My Facebook feed is mostly my friends talking about interesting things and I like it a lot.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jammygit 7y ago
    My Facebook feed had been friends posting memes and angry political stories since 2010. I deleted it
    - jefftk 7y ago
      Deleting it is one option, but another is teaching FB to show you posts by friends who have more interesting things to say. This has worked well for me, though I also expect it depends on your friends and how they use FB.