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I was 11 in '99 too, we had the internet since 97/98. I spent my time making dumb websites and playing Half-Life mods online (tf/cs/sven coop). Great times. The

I was 11 in '99 too, we had the internet since 97/98. I spent my time making dumb websites and playing Half-Life mods online (tf/cs/sven coop). Great times. The one strange thing I often think about is that I don't remember any toxicity, nothing like it is today in online games.

fy20 5y ago
Same age, but I didn't really get into online communities until the early noughties. I got into programming working with a gaming community to build out their website (building phpBB themes and mods) and building a matching service, and then it went from there... There was definately a lot of toxicity in that community though (even though we had maybe 20 regular members), so I think you were lucky :)
101008 5y ago
I know you say it without any offense, but don't call them "dumb websites". They were the thing I miss mostly about the old internet, specific niche websites made by people with passion for every need. - Specific websites for Half-Life mods run by a group of people from different parts of the world with a creative name (now you have to go to a subreddit or discord with a generic name, because of SEO?) - Specific website to follow all the news about my favourite soccer team, visiting every hour or two hours to see if they updated something. Now Twitter (Instagram later) has stolen that urgent sense. - Am I waiting for a new movie? Let's update the forum that I regular visit to see if the studio released a new trailer in .mov format and different resolutions. When it's done, send the link to my friends over MSN. Now it's on YouTube and I get a notification. Those dumb websites were the best and I am glad people like us spent their teen years creating them. Not only because I learnt a lot (and now I am a professinal thanks to them), but also because I think we give enjoyment to a lot of people around the world just because of it.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  Honestly I think there’s still a lot of space for simple HTML niche interest websites today, based on my experiences with various hobbies and topics. It’s surprising how many things out there don’t have any “one stop” pages, requiring anybody who’s just getting started to have to synthesize from several different places of varying accuracy, completeness, and relevance.
  - kragen 5y ago
    It's just hard to find them nowadays because they don't rank on Google.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
Old internet was better than new internet. What would I bring from 2022 back to 1999? Our robust Wikipedia. archive.org. Stackoverflow. YouTube. Github. Maybe just those?
- skinkestek 5y ago
  I'm not sure I'd bring back the 2022 version of Stackoverflow, somewhere the last 5 years it went from just rampant deletionism to ugly. Can we take HN instead?
tremon 5y ago
I don't remember any toxicity I'm sure there was plenty, judging from ancient IRC logs that drift by occasionally. But maybe those were saved because they were still the exception. The kids from back then were also raised in a directly-connected environment (the only non-direct communication was via snail mail, or "mail" as it was called), so they'd get corrected much sooner for violating the social contract in some way. Most children quickly learned to keep their unkind thoughts to themselves. The kids today are growing up with all manner of indirect connections, which both have fewer opportunities to correct behaviour and even if those corrections do happen, they're unlikely to have as much effect (if any) as real-life direct feedback. Also, the Internet wasn't "popular" back then so if people were bored, they'd hang out and troll somewhere else, like a mall or a parking lot. The Internet was mainly inhabited by serious people back then, I guess. That's my two cents, at least. In today's currency, not inflation-adjusted.
sylens 5y ago
Is it weird to have nostalgia for sitting in a download queue for patches to Half-Life and its mods on FilePlanet or FileShack?

fy20 5y ago

Same age, but I didn't really get into online communities until the early noughties. I got into programming working with a gaming community to build out their website (building phpBB themes and mods) and building a matching service, and then it went from there... There was definately a lot of toxicity in that community though (even though we had maybe 20 regular members), so I think you were lucky :)

101008 5y ago

I know you say it without any offense, but don't call them "dumb websites". They were the thing I miss mostly about the old internet, specific niche websites made by people with passion for every need. - Specific websites for Half-Life mods run by a group of people from different parts of the world with a creative name (now you have to go to a subreddit or discord with a generic name, because of SEO?) - Specific website to follow all the news about my favourite soccer team, visiting every hour or two hours to see if they updated something. Now Twitter (Instagram later) has stolen that urgent sense. - Am I waiting for a new movie? Let's update the forum that I regular visit to see if the studio released a new trailer in .mov format and different resolutions. When it's done, send the link to my friends over MSN. Now it's on YouTube and I get a notification. Those dumb websites were the best and I am glad people like us spent their teen years creating them. Not only because I learnt a lot (and now I am a professinal thanks to them), but also because I think we give enjoyment to a lot of people around the world just because of it.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
Honestly I think there’s still a lot of space for simple HTML niche interest websites today, based on my experiences with various hobbies and topics. It’s surprising how many things out there don’t have any “one stop” pages, requiring anybody who’s just getting started to have to synthesize from several different places of varying accuracy, completeness, and relevance.
- kragen 5y ago
  It's just hard to find them nowadays because they don't rank on Google.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

Old internet was better than new internet. What would I bring from 2022 back to 1999? Our robust Wikipedia. archive.org. Stackoverflow. YouTube. Github. Maybe just those?

skinkestek 5y ago
I'm not sure I'd bring back the 2022 version of Stackoverflow, somewhere the last 5 years it went from just rampant deletionism to ugly. Can we take HN instead?

tremon 5y ago

I don't remember any toxicity I'm sure there was plenty, judging from ancient IRC logs that drift by occasionally. But maybe those were saved because they were still the exception. The kids from back then were also raised in a directly-connected environment (the only non-direct communication was via snail mail, or "mail" as it was called), so they'd get corrected much sooner for violating the social contract in some way. Most children quickly learned to keep their unkind thoughts to themselves. The kids today are growing up with all manner of indirect connections, which both have fewer opportunities to correct behaviour and even if those corrections do happen, they're unlikely to have as much effect (if any) as real-life direct feedback. Also, the Internet wasn't "popular" back then so if people were bored, they'd hang out and troll somewhere else, like a mall or a parking lot. The Internet was mainly inhabited by serious people back then, I guess. That's my two cents, at least. In today's currency, not inflation-adjusted.

sylens 5y ago

Is it weird to have nostalgia for sitting in a download queue for patches to Half-Life and its mods on FilePlanet or FileShack?