4 ms·

We need to revive the ad free, commercial interest free Internet of the 90s. It will be small in size, but so was the internet back then. Someone should come u

We need to revive the ad free, commercial interest free Internet of the 90s. It will be small in size, but so was the internet back then. Someone should come up with a pub-sub distribute micro blogging service like how emails work.

mikro2nd 5y ago
mstdn.social
leephillips 5y ago
How about email?
smhenderson 5y ago
pub-sub distribute micro blogging service like how emails work It's called NNTP
- dragontamer 5y ago
  More commonly known as Usenet. (Or maybe google groups, lol)
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Usenet died of its own inability to handle scaling issues, ranging from culture and posting conventions to various forms of abuse and criminality. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c3xyu/why_usenet_died/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c3xyu/why_use... Attempting to resurrect Usenet at any scale simply won't work. Even with a lessons-learned set of improvements (Usenet II), it went nowhere.
  - Semiapies 5y ago
    The culture issue alone is a killer. People say they want the old early-90s internet, but that internet only worked that way because almost nobody outside of universities was on it and nothing on it actually mattered to anybody.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Yep. It took me way too long to find the usage numbers (which ironically were within an arm's reach on my bookshelf most of the time), but ~1988 Usenet was under 1 million potential users, and fewer than 150,000 active readers. Even by the mid-1990s, it was under 1 million active participants. Google+ was considered a failed social network with at least 10--100 million active users (by my own conservative estimates based on sampled profile data, independently verified by a much larger analysis). Facebook has 3 billion MAUs (monthly active users). Until ~1992 (the Eternal September), Usenet users were largely represented as cohorts of a few hundred to low thousands, each subject to the disciplinary authority of university network administrators. Privileges could be and were revoked. Netadmins had a hardcopy directory in which everyone's number was listed twice (forward and reverse search). They talked to each other. I'm active on Diaspora (for over a decade) and Mastodon (for about five years now). Both are far smaller than their comparable commercial equivalents (FB and Twitter, respectively). Each already strains under abuse, spam, and propaganda efforts, though Mastodon seems to have a more robust containment toolkit. Much resembles the old Usenet model: individual instance administrators can determine what users (locally or remotely) or instances (remote federation) can interact, and to what extent. It's high-touch, and has issues, but at present scale it mostly works. (Not perfectly, but it's not completely blown up yet either.) Diaspora ... seems on far shakier grounds. User controls, admin engagement, reporting tools, and the culture of active management are all far weaker. The saving grace is the lack of algorithmic amplification, but bad actors are a distinct presence, if largely walled off into their own small, sad world.
      - ipaddr 5y ago
        On the google+ 99.99% if offered would gladly take google+ for free. It was a huge success. Google closed it down because they realize they never needed it. You were rarely providing new information to google because you already had an account and they already were tracking you everywhere. Your posts on other social networking sites google knows about and uses. What sites you visit google knows about. The only thing google+ gives google is your social graph. But not your friends/family social graph more of your professional social graph. I don't think there was a way to target that info through ads into more profit. They probably leveraged access to facebook's data for ads in exchange for shutting it down.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Someone should come up with a pub-sub distribute micro blogging service like how emails work. As well as NNTP (mentioned in a sibling comment), listserves work for that (and don't just work like email, they use email.) And both have been around longer than the web.
opan 5y ago
There's gemini. Not the web, but maybe has the vibe you're looking for. https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
lancesells 5y ago
I would love that but think adding in any kind of automated service will keep it from being the back-then internet.
omoikane 5y ago
Mastodon and diaspora* might fit this description, especially the "small in size" part.
rchaud 5y ago
The only way to do this is with blogrolls/linkrolls and other decentralized mechanisms. Making a centralized repo of links like a Yahoo! style web directory is only going to lead to that directory monetizing its gatekeeper status.
fsiefken 5y ago
gemini https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ fediverse: mastodon, pleroma, pixelfed indieweb: https://indieweb.org/ https://indieweb.org/ twtxt: https://indieweb.org/twtxt https://indieweb.org/twtxt scuttlebutt https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/ hypercore https://hypercore-protocol.org/ https://hypercore-protocol.org/ (see iris.to for an implementation) https://quitsocialmedia.club/solutions https://quitsocialmedia.club/solutions
- kmstout 5y ago
  Also, hit up a bulletin board or two: https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/?step=name&all=0 https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/?step=name&all=0
- richardfey 5y ago
  On the IM side there's also https://delta.chat/en/ https://delta.chat/en/
- p4bl0 5y ago
  I would add RetroShare to the list.
hk__2 5y ago
> We need to revive the ad free, commercial interest free Internet of the 90s. It will be small in size, but so was the internet back then. It still exists, it’s just harder and harder to find. For example, most of the tech blogs you see on HN are hosted on personal websites with no ads.

mikro2nd 5y ago

mstdn.social

leephillips 5y ago

How about email?

smhenderson 5y ago

pub-sub distribute micro blogging service like how emails work It's called NNTP

dragontamer 5y ago
More commonly known as Usenet. (Or maybe google groups, lol)
dredmorbius 5y ago
Usenet died of its own inability to handle scaling issues, ranging from culture and posting conventions to various forms of abuse and criminality. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c3xyu/why_usenet_died/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c3xyu/why_use... Attempting to resurrect Usenet at any scale simply won't work. Even with a lessons-learned set of improvements (Usenet II), it went nowhere.
- Semiapies 5y ago
  The culture issue alone is a killer. People say they want the old early-90s internet, but that internet only worked that way because almost nobody outside of universities was on it and nothing on it actually mattered to anybody.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Yep. It took me way too long to find the usage numbers (which ironically were within an arm's reach on my bookshelf most of the time), but ~1988 Usenet was under 1 million potential users, and fewer than 150,000 active readers. Even by the mid-1990s, it was under 1 million active participants. Google+ was considered a failed social network with at least 10--100 million active users (by my own conservative estimates based on sampled profile data, independently verified by a much larger analysis). Facebook has 3 billion MAUs (monthly active users). Until ~1992 (the Eternal September), Usenet users were largely represented as cohorts of a few hundred to low thousands, each subject to the disciplinary authority of university network administrators. Privileges could be and were revoked. Netadmins had a hardcopy directory in which everyone's number was listed twice (forward and reverse search). They talked to each other. I'm active on Diaspora (for over a decade) and Mastodon (for about five years now). Both are far smaller than their comparable commercial equivalents (FB and Twitter, respectively). Each already strains under abuse, spam, and propaganda efforts, though Mastodon seems to have a more robust containment toolkit. Much resembles the old Usenet model: individual instance administrators can determine what users (locally or remotely) or instances (remote federation) can interact, and to what extent. It's high-touch, and has issues, but at present scale it mostly works. (Not perfectly, but it's not completely blown up yet either.) Diaspora ... seems on far shakier grounds. User controls, admin engagement, reporting tools, and the culture of active management are all far weaker. The saving grace is the lack of algorithmic amplification, but bad actors are a distinct presence, if largely walled off into their own small, sad world.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      On the google+ 99.99% if offered would gladly take google+ for free. It was a huge success. Google closed it down because they realize they never needed it. You were rarely providing new information to google because you already had an account and they already were tracking you everywhere. Your posts on other social networking sites google knows about and uses. What sites you visit google knows about. The only thing google+ gives google is your social graph. But not your friends/family social graph more of your professional social graph. I don't think there was a way to target that info through ads into more profit. They probably leveraged access to facebook's data for ads in exchange for shutting it down.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Someone should come up with a pub-sub distribute micro blogging service like how emails work. As well as NNTP (mentioned in a sibling comment), listserves work for that (and don't just work like email, they use email.) And both have been around longer than the web.

opan 5y ago

There's gemini. Not the web, but maybe has the vibe you're looking for. https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

lancesells 5y ago

I would love that but think adding in any kind of automated service will keep it from being the back-then internet.

omoikane 5y ago

Mastodon and diaspora* might fit this description, especially the "small in size" part.

rchaud 5y ago

The only way to do this is with blogrolls/linkrolls and other decentralized mechanisms. Making a centralized repo of links like a Yahoo! style web directory is only going to lead to that directory monetizing its gatekeeper status.

fsiefken 5y ago

gemini https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ fediverse: mastodon, pleroma, pixelfed indieweb: https://indieweb.org/ https://indieweb.org/ twtxt: https://indieweb.org/twtxt https://indieweb.org/twtxt scuttlebutt https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/ hypercore https://hypercore-protocol.org/ https://hypercore-protocol.org/ (see iris.to for an implementation) https://quitsocialmedia.club/solutions https://quitsocialmedia.club/solutions

kmstout 5y ago
Also, hit up a bulletin board or two: https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/?step=name&all=0 https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/?step=name&all=0
richardfey 5y ago
On the IM side there's also https://delta.chat/en/ https://delta.chat/en/
p4bl0 5y ago
I would add RetroShare to the list.

hk__2 5y ago

> We need to revive the ad free, commercial interest free Internet of the 90s. It will be small in size, but so was the internet back then. It still exists, it’s just harder and harder to find. For example, most of the tech blogs you see on HN are hosted on personal websites with no ads.