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I just watched Inside [1], where Bo Burnham creates a wonderful, funny, sad and thought-provoking "Special" about our internet culture. Highly recommended. Thi

I just watched Inside [1], where Bo Burnham creates a wonderful, funny, sad and thought-provoking "Special" about our internet culture. Highly recommended. This is one of my favourite songs now: [2] It's a bit crazy when I think about how different our generations grow up and it makes me a bit sad that our children will have a completely different understanding of what the internet is. For me it was a place of wonder, freedom and self-expression. It's different today, but even I have problems explaining how it changed. But it definitely lost some if it's playfulness on the way. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14544192/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14544192/ [2] https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU

ketanhwr 5y ago
+1 for "Welcome to the Internet". I was thinking exactly of that song when I read the post!
ethbr0 5y ago
If I had to distill four decades of "mass Internet" transformation into one phrase: Independent creator culture (1980-2000), converted into mass consumer culture (2000-2010), and then back into taxed creator culture within walled ecosystems (2010-2020).
- sprkwd 5y ago
  What happens next?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Predicting the future is a more lucrative talent than summarizing the past, and I'm not that rich. :)
  - keiferski 5y ago
    If we ever get around to having a Basic Income, it may help this somewhat. Creators may feel less pushed to monetize the things they make.
    - wwweston 5y ago
      This. Capitalism is pretty good at making a lot of what can be monetized at industrial scales, but without some form of complementing security, it also places distorting incentives to search every activity for ROI possibilities in one form or another.
- gogopuppygogo 5y ago
  That timeline you described doesn’t align with the events of eternal September: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Mass effect lags individual instance, and ranges are general. F.ex. YouTube started in 2005, but from my memory the first years were primarily sharing copyrighted commercial material, before they cracked down on that and leaned into monetizing and taxing organic content
- delecti 5y ago
  I think all of that independent creator culture is still out there, there's just also the mass consumer culture and walled ecosystems on top. It's a relatively insignificant proportion of things now, but big networks seem to be what most people are looking for.
  - vkk8 5y ago
    Not all. While commercialization of the creator culture undoubtedly has some benefits, it also kills some of its original "soul". Someone making funny videos on the internet on their free time without any kind of expectation to make money out of it unavoidably produces different results than the same person making semi-professional videos on Youtube and making living out of it. If the latter is an option, why the hell would the said person do the former? But since the latter option exists, it drives all of the creations to more professional, less quirky direction. It's the same effect that causes all the Hollywood films to have pretty much the same story arc and all the big budget games to feel like copies of each other.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      That's an effect, sure. But I think it's more corrosive on the platform side. If I start a business that makes hosting and sharing videos easier, should I sell it to hobbyists who don't have money, or semi/pros who have lots of money? And how does that affect my feature pipeline and product evolution? The end result being... hobbyists have minimal, difficult, and (relatively) expensive platforms to enable their work, and semi/pros have well featured and cheap (or free) platforms. And that perpetuates the bifurcation and destruction of pure hobbyists.
  - bob1029 5y ago
    > I think all of that independent creator culture is still out there It absolutely is. You don't even have to go completely old-school and DIY youtube. There is always a way you can surf the current internet weather conditions to achieve some hybrid stance. For instance, maybe you put some videos on YouTube, but also have deeper posts for each of those on some personal blog that you host on a server in your garage. With this approach, you can drive traffic from both directions - People who were browsing your blog and want to watch some embedded YT demo, and YouTubers desperate for hard, written technical documentation on how to do something will have link in the description below.
- skummetmaelk 5y ago
  The book "The Master Switch" explains how radio, film and cable TV went through the exact same phases. It's worth a read if you find this transformation interesting.
cousin_it 5y ago
In retrospect, the old internet had plenty of derisiveness, toward targets like religion or copyright. Many of the loudest voices switched to today's morality movement without skipping a beat.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  That's because the social justice movement is a religion. No one calls it this but the tell tail sign is you can't debate this issues with facts. Climate change has produced their own religious zealots.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    It’s not true that “no one” calls it that. That’s, in fact, one of the most shopworn arguments against it and one I come across nearly every day.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      I've never heard the term in the media. I guess a lot of people are reaching the same conclusion.
      - antifa 5y ago
        I usually try find a more reliable source than "Well I haven't heard it on the media".
xwolfi 5y ago
But to be fair, while it was a cheap wild west pioneer experience for us, it's also because we were drawn to this in the first place. Once it become cheap and accessible enough for most people, it turned into the utilitarian network it is today. I mean, there was frankly no other way forward. Our kids will either be drawn to the next frontier, or wont be bothered like MOST KIDS when we grew up :D
dehrmann 5y ago
> it definitely lost some if it's playfulness on the way Kids seem to be having fun on TikTok. The obvious issue is I wouldn't call it a place of freedom.
isaiahg 5y ago
Maybe things felt better because the internet originally reflected a subset of our population. Before the advent of cheap smartphones and 24/7 connections with a cellular plan, being part of the early internet usually meant you had a well paid job and were educated. The internet of today hasn't changed much and is still a reflection of it's population. And if we don't like what we see it's because it highlights the worst parts of society as well as the best. I've been doing a lot of thinking on how the internet has changed humanity since it's inception and watching our gradual change into a more connected and collectivist mentality. I think right now we're all being confronted with the imperfect creatures we are and ultimately I think it's a good thing for how we'll progress from here.

ketanhwr 5y ago

+1 for "Welcome to the Internet". I was thinking exactly of that song when I read the post!

ethbr0 5y ago

If I had to distill four decades of "mass Internet" transformation into one phrase: Independent creator culture (1980-2000), converted into mass consumer culture (2000-2010), and then back into taxed creator culture within walled ecosystems (2010-2020).

sprkwd 5y ago
What happens next?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Predicting the future is a more lucrative talent than summarizing the past, and I'm not that rich. :)
- keiferski 5y ago
  If we ever get around to having a Basic Income, it may help this somewhat. Creators may feel less pushed to monetize the things they make.
  - wwweston 5y ago
    This. Capitalism is pretty good at making a lot of what can be monetized at industrial scales, but without some form of complementing security, it also places distorting incentives to search every activity for ROI possibilities in one form or another.
gogopuppygogo 5y ago
That timeline you described doesn’t align with the events of eternal September: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Mass effect lags individual instance, and ranges are general. F.ex. YouTube started in 2005, but from my memory the first years were primarily sharing copyrighted commercial material, before they cracked down on that and leaned into monetizing and taxing organic content
delecti 5y ago
I think all of that independent creator culture is still out there, there's just also the mass consumer culture and walled ecosystems on top. It's a relatively insignificant proportion of things now, but big networks seem to be what most people are looking for.
- vkk8 5y ago
  Not all. While commercialization of the creator culture undoubtedly has some benefits, it also kills some of its original "soul". Someone making funny videos on the internet on their free time without any kind of expectation to make money out of it unavoidably produces different results than the same person making semi-professional videos on Youtube and making living out of it. If the latter is an option, why the hell would the said person do the former? But since the latter option exists, it drives all of the creations to more professional, less quirky direction. It's the same effect that causes all the Hollywood films to have pretty much the same story arc and all the big budget games to feel like copies of each other.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    That's an effect, sure. But I think it's more corrosive on the platform side. If I start a business that makes hosting and sharing videos easier, should I sell it to hobbyists who don't have money, or semi/pros who have lots of money? And how does that affect my feature pipeline and product evolution? The end result being... hobbyists have minimal, difficult, and (relatively) expensive platforms to enable their work, and semi/pros have well featured and cheap (or free) platforms. And that perpetuates the bifurcation and destruction of pure hobbyists.
- bob1029 5y ago
  > I think all of that independent creator culture is still out there It absolutely is. You don't even have to go completely old-school and DIY youtube. There is always a way you can surf the current internet weather conditions to achieve some hybrid stance. For instance, maybe you put some videos on YouTube, but also have deeper posts for each of those on some personal blog that you host on a server in your garage. With this approach, you can drive traffic from both directions - People who were browsing your blog and want to watch some embedded YT demo, and YouTubers desperate for hard, written technical documentation on how to do something will have link in the description below.
skummetmaelk 5y ago
The book "The Master Switch" explains how radio, film and cable TV went through the exact same phases. It's worth a read if you find this transformation interesting.

cousin_it 5y ago

In retrospect, the old internet had plenty of derisiveness, toward targets like religion or copyright. Many of the loudest voices switched to today's morality movement without skipping a beat.

ipaddr 5y ago
That's because the social justice movement is a religion. No one calls it this but the tell tail sign is you can't debate this issues with facts. Climate change has produced their own religious zealots.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  It’s not true that “no one” calls it that. That’s, in fact, one of the most shopworn arguments against it and one I come across nearly every day.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I've never heard the term in the media. I guess a lot of people are reaching the same conclusion.
    - antifa 5y ago
      I usually try find a more reliable source than "Well I haven't heard it on the media".

xwolfi 5y ago

But to be fair, while it was a cheap wild west pioneer experience for us, it's also because we were drawn to this in the first place. Once it become cheap and accessible enough for most people, it turned into the utilitarian network it is today. I mean, there was frankly no other way forward. Our kids will either be drawn to the next frontier, or wont be bothered like MOST KIDS when we grew up :D

dehrmann 5y ago

> it definitely lost some if it's playfulness on the way Kids seem to be having fun on TikTok. The obvious issue is I wouldn't call it a place of freedom.

isaiahg 5y ago

Maybe things felt better because the internet originally reflected a subset of our population. Before the advent of cheap smartphones and 24/7 connections with a cellular plan, being part of the early internet usually meant you had a well paid job and were educated. The internet of today hasn't changed much and is still a reflection of it's population. And if we don't like what we see it's because it highlights the worst parts of society as well as the best. I've been doing a lot of thinking on how the internet has changed humanity since it's inception and watching our gradual change into a more connected and collectivist mentality. I think right now we're all being confronted with the imperfect creatures we are and ultimately I think it's a good thing for how we'll progress from here.