6 ms·

Lets be real though, nobody actually enjoyed dialup speeds. Sure, we were lucky we had the internet at all but when cable and DSL came around it was a breath o

Lets be real though, nobody actually enjoyed dialup speeds. Sure, we were lucky we had the internet at all but when cable and DSL came around it was a breath of fresh air.

bArray 6y ago
I don't miss the speed, but I miss what the speed enforced. Pages were lighter and less wasteful with resources. These days you have pages that will not load without JS enabled, which is sometimes 10x or 100x the actual content it's displaying. That's not to mention images - people happily throw in a 1MB image, because why not? A 10MB gif to replaces a 1MB video, because why not? Of course there are still people in remote areas, poorer Countries, low-signal zones, etc, who actually do have to deal with this daily. I remember reading a while back how Youtube and Facebook were completely unusable for some users because of this - not because of the actual content they are delivering.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
  mbasic.facebook.com
- 6510 6y ago
  My old laptop with win 7 cant run youtube 144p (anymore). It just freezes up. If I download the videos in lubuntu, vlc plays the 720p but 480p is all I need. There is clearly nothing wrong with the hardware.
  - jdsully 6y ago
    I think a lot of that is GPU acceleration of the video codecs.
u801e 6y ago
> nobody actually enjoyed dialup speeds When downloading files, there was a lot of waiting involved, but if you were dealing with email without attachments, usenet, IRC, and some of the older chat platforms like ICQ, AIM, MSN messenger, yahoo messenger, etc. the lack of speed wasn't really noticable. These days, most websites and online platforms like Slack won't work at dial-up speeds.
- jdsully 6y ago
  Usenet could take quite a while to download your messages. All text websites and IRC were reasonable by the time of 33.6kbaud modems, but even by 1995 most websites had some graphics to download which were always painful. It only got slower from there as more was added each year. This episode of computer chronicles may remind you of the joy and horror of that time period. Note that most of these people are actually on corporate networks not dialing in... and its still horrendously slow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf6kVEN1lbk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf6kVEN1lbk
CydeWeys 6y ago
I remember waiting many seconds as images visibly loaded from top to bottom, or with the progressive quality multiple passes. Seconded that no one enjoyed it. We all looked enviously at the people at companies and universities with their better hookups.

Lets be real though, nobody actually enjoyed dialup speeds. Sure, we were lucky we had the internet at all but when cable and DSL came around it was a breath of fresh air.

bArray 6y ago

I don't miss the speed, but I miss what the speed enforced. Pages were lighter and less wasteful with resources. These days you have pages that will not load without JS enabled, which is sometimes 10x or 100x the actual content it's displaying. That's not to mention images - people happily throw in a 1MB image, because why not? A 10MB gif to replaces a 1MB video, because why not? Of course there are still people in remote areas, poorer Countries, low-signal zones, etc, who actually do have to deal with this daily. I remember reading a while back how Youtube and Facebook were completely unusable for some users because of this - not because of the actual content they are delivering.

gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
mbasic.facebook.com
6510 6y ago
My old laptop with win 7 cant run youtube 144p (anymore). It just freezes up. If I download the videos in lubuntu, vlc plays the 720p but 480p is all I need. There is clearly nothing wrong with the hardware.
- jdsully 6y ago
  I think a lot of that is GPU acceleration of the video codecs.

u801e 6y ago

> nobody actually enjoyed dialup speeds When downloading files, there was a lot of waiting involved, but if you were dealing with email without attachments, usenet, IRC, and some of the older chat platforms like ICQ, AIM, MSN messenger, yahoo messenger, etc. the lack of speed wasn't really noticable. These days, most websites and online platforms like Slack won't work at dial-up speeds.

jdsully 6y ago
Usenet could take quite a while to download your messages. All text websites and IRC were reasonable by the time of 33.6kbaud modems, but even by 1995 most websites had some graphics to download which were always painful. It only got slower from there as more was added each year. This episode of computer chronicles may remind you of the joy and horror of that time period. Note that most of these people are actually on corporate networks not dialing in... and its still horrendously slow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf6kVEN1lbk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf6kVEN1lbk

CydeWeys 6y ago

I remember waiting many seconds as images visibly loaded from top to bottom, or with the progressive quality multiple passes. Seconded that no one enjoyed it. We all looked enviously at the people at companies and universities with their better hookups.