4 ms·
The Buzzfeed article seems to focus around a particular user usage pattern, in that these were sites I personally did not use that horribly much. My "old intern
by gravitas 7y ago
The Buzzfeed article seems to focus around a particular user usage pattern, in that these were sites I personally did not use that horribly much. My "old internet" was Digg, Slashdot, GeoCities, HowardForums, ISP `~username` pages, Usenet, IRC and a multitude of others I've long forgotten. The Consumerist has a better version that speaks to me: https://consumerist.com/2015/03/20/where-did-everyone-from-the-90s-go-when-we-all-got-facebook-and-quit-web-1-0/ https://consumerist.com/2015/03/20/where-did-everyone-from-t...
In any case, we all agree Eternal September was the beginning of the end. :) http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/AOL-.html http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/AOL-.html
- ewzimm 7y agoSeptember 1993 Internet use shows the silliness of the idea of the death of the old Internet. In 1993, "...the World Wide Web, has seen the number of daily queries explode from almost 100,000 requests in June to almost 400,000 in October" https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/03/business/business-technology-jams-already-on-data-highway.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/03/business/business-technol... There are now over 4.5 billion Internet users. If even 0.002% of them make just one daily query on the web of the "old Internet," then it's still larger than the web before the Eternal September. Protocols like IRC and Gopher are more active today than late 1993. It's true that data moving through centralized services is larger today, but that doesn't invalidate the continued life of the "old Internet" any more than the relative domination of analog communications over copper wires in 1993 meant the Internet was dead back then.
- gravitas 7y agoIt was a tongue in cheek sarcastic comment, my friend. Whole new paragraph, smiley face at the end, fun link to the "me, too!" history, you know - lighthearted and jovial.
- ewzimm 7y agoIntent understood! It's a classic turning point in Internet history, and I think the massive rise in traffic to 400,000 queries per day is the perfect example of how much bigger things are today and how all those old paradigms are even more alive now than they were then.