5 ms·

I wonder if in another 400 years some distant society will look at ours as the "Dark Ages" since all information is locked behind services that have since disap

I wonder if in another 400 years some distant society will look at ours as the "Dark Ages" since all information is locked behind services that have since disappeared like Yahoo Answers, Geocities, AIM profiles, MySpace, and (maybe) Facebook.

kristianc 6y ago
Unlikely. Far more (printed) books are being published today than at any previous time in human history - certainly more so than in the Dark Ages where most had neither the equipment nor the education to write. And that’s before you include the likes of Wikipedia, which it’s inconceivable won’t be recorded in at least some form. We will have a pretty good record of our civilization to work with - down to the minutest cultural ephemera. https://ourworldindata.org/books https://ourworldindata.org/books
Ekaros 6y ago
I wonder how much of early web we have already lost. All of the forums, user generated content and so on just gone...
- cogman10 6y ago
  Tons. There still exists some holdouts with long histories (such as anandtech). That said, once upon a time nearly all "social media" was forums for things of interest. It sort of makes me sad for the internet bygone. I really miss the fact that nearly every product had a half dozen fan pages dedicated to it. Things like https://www.massassi.net/ https://www.massassi.net/ were amazing back in their hayday. Now everything it consolidated into big social media locations :(
- corywatilo 6y ago
  That's one positive of projects like Posthaven
koolba 6y ago
The real problem of the proletariat is not being able to permanently delete their comments.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  If social networks hadn't instituted real-name policies, people wouldn't be so concerned about old comments, because those comments might be linked to pseudonyms, not their real names.
nonbirithm 6y ago
I had only recently thought about this when YouTube announced they were hiding the video dislike count. Killing off Yahoo Answers is far worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26654258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26654258 Phrases like "the algorithm" have started showing up in all kinds of videos and texts, not just in tech-centric ones. They had to, now that said algorithm is tied to the ability of certain people to make money and survive. The effect that Big Tech has on our lives and on human history is becoming more and more profound.

kristianc 6y ago

Unlikely. Far more (printed) books are being published today than at any previous time in human history - certainly more so than in the Dark Ages where most had neither the equipment nor the education to write. And that’s before you include the likes of Wikipedia, which it’s inconceivable won’t be recorded in at least some form. We will have a pretty good record of our civilization to work with - down to the minutest cultural ephemera. https://ourworldindata.org/books https://ourworldindata.org/books

Ekaros 6y ago

I wonder how much of early web we have already lost. All of the forums, user generated content and so on just gone...

cogman10 6y ago
Tons. There still exists some holdouts with long histories (such as anandtech). That said, once upon a time nearly all "social media" was forums for things of interest. It sort of makes me sad for the internet bygone. I really miss the fact that nearly every product had a half dozen fan pages dedicated to it. Things like https://www.massassi.net/ https://www.massassi.net/ were amazing back in their hayday. Now everything it consolidated into big social media locations :(
corywatilo 6y ago
That's one positive of projects like Posthaven

koolba 6y ago

The real problem of the proletariat is not being able to permanently delete their comments.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
If social networks hadn't instituted real-name policies, people wouldn't be so concerned about old comments, because those comments might be linked to pseudonyms, not their real names.

nonbirithm 6y ago

I had only recently thought about this when YouTube announced they were hiding the video dislike count. Killing off Yahoo Answers is far worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26654258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26654258 Phrases like "the algorithm" have started showing up in all kinds of videos and texts, not just in tech-centric ones. They had to, now that said algorithm is tied to the ability of certain people to make money and survive. The effect that Big Tech has on our lives and on human history is becoming more and more profound.