4 ms·

So don't be a user. Self host and federate. The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. And when you use other's services, l

So don't be a user. Self host and federate. The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. And when you use other's services, like, say, reading an article hosted at 'thenation.com', a site which attempts to block you from reading unless you run their javascript and CSS, use a browser with tools that allow you to toggle things like JS and CSS to read it anyway. Then re-share the article as plain text, https://write.as/tg3o7a6dfa5ck.md https://write.as/tg3o7a6dfa5ck.md And always remember: Lurking is good, https://i.imgur.com/7NYQ17y.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/7NYQ17y.mp4

blfr 6y ago
The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. It is and it isn't. Sure, you can run a website, forum, blog, whatever and host it yourself much easier than in the 90s. But people look for you and connect on the popular platforms they frequent: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Back in the day even normies would pick up some tech and talk to you on IRC or USENET. Nowadays, it's the opposite, the bias is in the other direction. Even hackers are on Slack and Twitter.
- ghaff 6y ago
  You're right. Though I'd probably argue that a lot of people may be overly concerned with discoverability, follower counts, monitization, etc. You can blog/podcast/make videos/etc. as easily (or more so) as you could in the early 2000s. And you can always just link from Twitter or whatever. If you don't stress about maximizing your followers all the capabilities are still there. But you're right that the bias has shifted, e.g. long twitter threads (with no real archivability) vs. a blog post.
- chris-orgmenta 6y ago
  >But people look for you and connect on the popular platforms they frequent: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Back in the day even normies would pick up some tech and talk to you on IRC or USENET Is that true? Peak IRC users appears to be 10 million (2013) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline, Citation needed. Pretending that all IRC users were in the US... That's ~3% of the population. Usenet is arguably going strong (daily volume has exploded but isn't a useful metric here though. Can't find active users from cursory look). ~70% of US population are 'active' users of Facebook. This counts people that have only used it once in the last 30 days. And it's not a dichotomy - I don't think people have an issue stepping outside of facebook, as long as there are no barriers to entry. Just playing devil's advocate, I don't disagree with you in general. I appreciate that my stats are lazy and blunt, but it shows how relatively minuscule the usage of IRC & Usenet were 2 decades ago, and that while direct messaging might be in a more 'walled garden' state, traffic to self-federated content is generally still as attainable. Perhaps 'eternal september' has swung so far to the other side that the old non-internet users of the 90s have funnelled through AOL and out the other side to Facebook (and notably, it's easier to grab traffic from FB users than non-internet users), while the core tech demographic has remained 'in the middle'.
  - DataWorker 6y ago
    You are counting 2 year olds in the denominator. IRC and Usenet were the internet. If you used a computer you used these. But yes, computers were less common then, especially amongst two year olds.
    - chris-orgmenta 6y ago
      Sure, I also pretended that IRC users were all US based... I could have taken a figure of 3b. instead of 3m. Also was careful to state "stats are lazy and blunt"
      - chris-orgmenta 6y ago
        *300m
    - kergonath 6y ago
      He’s also counting only Americans. There never was a time when normal people hanged out on IRC. Wikipedia has ~120 millions people on the Internet in 1997, and 10 millions IRC users at its peak in 2003. So 8% of Internet users on IRC is a wildly optimistic upper bound. 1% is probably closer to the truth.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  I think there is a shifting baseline bias. There were plenty of "normies" who considered the internet just for nerds. Really the question of the choice is "Do you care about the audience at large or the way you and your small niche want it more?"
tqi 6y ago
But for many of the core criticisms of large tech platforms like Facebook/Google/Twitter self hosting and federation doesn't really address the problems (fake news, fomenting extremism or conspiracy theory, harassment, discrimination) so much as make it so that there is not a single entity to villify.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Those issues you addressed are problems when everyone centralizes in one place and then an attempt is made to find one set of rules/ethics for everyone. Cut the gordian knot. Just don't all centralize in one place and you no longer all need to follow the same rules. That said, if you're using those platforms for monetary reasons then you'll have to stay there. Network effect. But that's for the best: profit motive is eventually toxic to community.
- NineStarPoint 6y ago
  And if you remove them from Facebook/Google/Twitter, they’ll still make their own side sites and keep spreading those things anyway (see: Reddit->Vote). The value of those things not being present in easy central entities is that it heavily limits their ability to easily spread.
- swiley 6y ago
  Centralized platforms haven’t addressed those either (in many cases they’ve exacerbated them!)
danlugo92 6y ago
Would archive.is archieve the same while maintaining some semblance of how the original site looks?
yerabotarry 6y ago
>The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. Dont you see the bars on the windows and doors?
- inetknght 6y ago
  > Dont you see the bars on the windows and doors? Yup. Captchas are everywhere. Javascript is everywhere. Finding a website that loads without having to enable javascript or go through captcha is a breath of relief. They do exist.
  - willismichael 6y ago
    I keep thinking that I would like a search engine that specifically favors minimalist, 90s style personal websites.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - spc476 6y ago
      Here you go: https://wiby.me/ https://wiby.me/ Oh, and also: https://millionshort.com/ https://millionshort.com/ Edit: added second link.
nicbou 6y ago
I host my own content. Even then, 90% of my visitors come from search engines. This is not a problem for my personal blog, but it's a problem for my other website, which is my main source of income. This is a much more serious problems in other fields, where you can only reach your crowd through YouTube or Instagram. That being said, having a crowd wasn't even a thing back then. Platforms have given immensely talented people a free soapbox to show the world all sorts of things. Anyone can share something nowadays, not only people who know HTML and a few other things.
swiley 6y ago
And if you can’t self host: that’s a good indication you’ve bought into the wrong technology and someone is trying to extract value from you.

blfr 6y ago

The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. It is and it isn't. Sure, you can run a website, forum, blog, whatever and host it yourself much easier than in the 90s. But people look for you and connect on the popular platforms they frequent: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Back in the day even normies would pick up some tech and talk to you on IRC or USENET. Nowadays, it's the opposite, the bias is in the other direction. Even hackers are on Slack and Twitter.

ghaff 6y ago
You're right. Though I'd probably argue that a lot of people may be overly concerned with discoverability, follower counts, monitization, etc. You can blog/podcast/make videos/etc. as easily (or more so) as you could in the early 2000s. And you can always just link from Twitter or whatever. If you don't stress about maximizing your followers all the capabilities are still there. But you're right that the bias has shifted, e.g. long twitter threads (with no real archivability) vs. a blog post.
chris-orgmenta 6y ago
>But people look for you and connect on the popular platforms they frequent: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Back in the day even normies would pick up some tech and talk to you on IRC or USENET Is that true? Peak IRC users appears to be 10 million (2013) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline, Citation needed. Pretending that all IRC users were in the US... That's ~3% of the population. Usenet is arguably going strong (daily volume has exploded but isn't a useful metric here though. Can't find active users from cursory look). ~70% of US population are 'active' users of Facebook. This counts people that have only used it once in the last 30 days. And it's not a dichotomy - I don't think people have an issue stepping outside of facebook, as long as there are no barriers to entry. Just playing devil's advocate, I don't disagree with you in general. I appreciate that my stats are lazy and blunt, but it shows how relatively minuscule the usage of IRC & Usenet were 2 decades ago, and that while direct messaging might be in a more 'walled garden' state, traffic to self-federated content is generally still as attainable. Perhaps 'eternal september' has swung so far to the other side that the old non-internet users of the 90s have funnelled through AOL and out the other side to Facebook (and notably, it's easier to grab traffic from FB users than non-internet users), while the core tech demographic has remained 'in the middle'.
- DataWorker 6y ago
  You are counting 2 year olds in the denominator. IRC and Usenet were the internet. If you used a computer you used these. But yes, computers were less common then, especially amongst two year olds.
  - chris-orgmenta 6y ago
    Sure, I also pretended that IRC users were all US based... I could have taken a figure of 3b. instead of 3m. Also was careful to state "stats are lazy and blunt"
    - chris-orgmenta 6y ago
      *300m
  - kergonath 6y ago
    He’s also counting only Americans. There never was a time when normal people hanged out on IRC. Wikipedia has ~120 millions people on the Internet in 1997, and 10 millions IRC users at its peak in 2003. So 8% of Internet users on IRC is a wildly optimistic upper bound. 1% is probably closer to the truth.
Nasrudith 6y ago
I think there is a shifting baseline bias. There were plenty of "normies" who considered the internet just for nerds. Really the question of the choice is "Do you care about the audience at large or the way you and your small niche want it more?"

tqi 6y ago

But for many of the core criticisms of large tech platforms like Facebook/Google/Twitter self hosting and federation doesn't really address the problems (fake news, fomenting extremism or conspiracy theory, harassment, discrimination) so much as make it so that there is not a single entity to villify.

superkuh 6y ago
Those issues you addressed are problems when everyone centralizes in one place and then an attempt is made to find one set of rules/ethics for everyone. Cut the gordian knot. Just don't all centralize in one place and you no longer all need to follow the same rules. That said, if you're using those platforms for monetary reasons then you'll have to stay there. Network effect. But that's for the best: profit motive is eventually toxic to community.
NineStarPoint 6y ago
And if you remove them from Facebook/Google/Twitter, they’ll still make their own side sites and keep spreading those things anyway (see: Reddit->Vote). The value of those things not being present in easy central entities is that it heavily limits their ability to easily spread.
swiley 6y ago
Centralized platforms haven’t addressed those either (in many cases they’ve exacerbated them!)

danlugo92 6y ago

Would archive.is archieve the same while maintaining some semblance of how the original site looks?

yerabotarry 6y ago

>The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. Dont you see the bars on the windows and doors?

inetknght 6y ago
> Dont you see the bars on the windows and doors? Yup. Captchas are everywhere. Javascript is everywhere. Finding a website that loads without having to enable javascript or go through captcha is a breath of relief. They do exist.
- willismichael 6y ago
  I keep thinking that I would like a search engine that specifically favors minimalist, 90s style personal websites.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - spc476 6y ago
    Here you go: https://wiby.me/ https://wiby.me/ Oh, and also: https://millionshort.com/ https://millionshort.com/ Edit: added second link.

nicbou 6y ago

I host my own content. Even then, 90% of my visitors come from search engines. This is not a problem for my personal blog, but it's a problem for my other website, which is my main source of income. This is a much more serious problems in other fields, where you can only reach your crowd through YouTube or Instagram. That being said, having a crowd wasn't even a thing back then. Platforms have given immensely talented people a free soapbox to show the world all sorts of things. Anyone can share something nowadays, not only people who know HTML and a few other things.

swiley 6y ago

And if you can’t self host: that’s a good indication you’ve bought into the wrong technology and someone is trying to extract value from you.