4 ms·
The net was a very different place before, say, somewhere between 2010 and 2015. I saw a huge shift then. Everything got monetized, weaponized, optimized for ad
by api 4y ago
The net was a very different place before, say, somewhere between 2010 and 2015. I saw a huge shift then. Everything got monetized, weaponized, optimized for addiction, or drowned in spam. There’s always been bad actors and criminals and trolls online too but in the past decade they have either gotten worse or become more empowered.
The golden age of the open Internet was really between about 1996 when it started to go public and 2010. The net today feels like either a ghost town or a hellhole. The only remaining good places seem to be niche sites or groups and private forums. The fediverse is decent but I am concerned for its long term future if it becomes big enough to be a worthy target for spammers and trolls.
As for the cause of the decline I can think of a few big factors:
1. Engagement maximizing algorithms give weight to the most inflammatory content. These hit the scene big starting around 2008. If you forced me to pick one root culprit I would blame this.
2. Thanks to monetized social media “Internet troll” is now a career option. You can make money. You can maybe even become the President of the United States.
3. Speaking of politics, I think something changed when enough people got online that the net became the major source for political opinion. There is now not just money but power to be gained by manipulating things online. This attracts a whole different level of scum.
4. Trolls have escalated to the point that people have died. Mass shooters post their manifestos on boards now before they go on killing sprees. Running a forum today is just not fun anymore, especially if it’s not narrowly focused and topical. Nobody in their right mind would set up something like Something Awful or 4chan today.
What happened to optimistic online cyber culture reminds me a bit of what happened to the 1960s counterculture. In a few years it went from exploration and optimism and art to Manson and Altamont. There seems to be a pattern where whenever humanity seems to be making a cultural breakthrough we get naive and then things go real bad real fast.
- pbronez 4y agoWell said. I wonder if maybe It Can Be Different This Time. I think it will take focused work at the protocol level, because you’re right that the Fediverse is a juicy target. I worry that the next 6 months will be a war against spam and other attackers… one that instance admins are under-resourced and under-equipped to win. We need to get a governance structure going and iterate towards something like OcapPub https://gitlab.com/spritely/ocappub https://gitlab.com/spritely/ocappub
- api 4y agoOne thing the cryptocurrency people do get right is designing protocols for attack resistance from the get go. They do this because it’s money, but people need to learn that everything is money. Personal data, attention, access to boost opinions, etc are all fungible currencies that will get stolen if they are not protected. ActivityPub is not designed for a battlefield. I worry that this dooms it.
- claytongulick 4y agoI'd add the Burning Man / burner community to this list too. It used to be a wild-west sort of escape from real life, and exploration of the ten principles [1]. Now politics dominate and there's only one right-think. When I brought up some of my concerns about this, I had someone in leadership of one of the largest regional burns tell me "you all had your time with the ten principles stuff. We're in charge now". Sad, that community really helped me grow into a better person. [1] https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/ https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/
- d4nnyo 4y ago[flagged]
- red-iron-pine 4y ago> 1. Engagement maximizing algorithms give weight to the most inflammatory content. These hit the scene big starting around 2008. If you forced me to pick one root culprit I would blame this. This isn't new, or even kinda new. Tabloids, TV, billboards, they've al been doing this since before anyone posting on HN was born. > 2. Thanks to monetized social media “Internet troll” is now a career option. You can make money. You can maybe even become the President of the United States. Not for much longer. GPT-4 gonna take that over. Dang robots, takin er jerbs.
- Slava_Propanei 4y ago[dead]