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There was never a substantial amount of informational content on AOL proper, it was all advertising or mass media-generated stuff. User-generated content in the

There was never a substantial amount of informational content on AOL proper, it was all advertising or mass media-generated stuff. User-generated content in the discussion boards that I remember was insubstantial and in any case there weren't really proper search engines back then anyway. None of your friends were like, "check me out on AOL keyword Bob Smith", putting content on AOL was effectively impossible outside discussion boards or chat. (Which IIRC was inundated with a/s/l bullshit) I'm OK with the patchwork of image hosts fading out because they are archivable. I can still right-click to save what interests me, and the image is hosted at a URL anyone could punch in or scrape. Except more recently, where we all apparently hate bots and we've let our bandwidth providers become highwaymen for a resource that is supposed to be free. I'm not saying this stuff needs to be immortal, it just needs to be distributed, archiveable, linkable, and accessible from the client of your choice. Reddit suppresses scraping and nobody seems to have anything cached in an accessible way, at least judging by Google results. > And isn't it telling that all those generations still ended up going with The Man or becoming The Man? Maybe it isn't an effective approach. Where there is an effective ecosystem that avoids "The Man" I think you will still find those people. They are not highlighted or lifted up by the masses. Instead most folks will make the contemptible choice of sucking off the corporate cock in exchange for a relatively easy and mindless, monotonous, consumptive, pathetic little life. I know this because I did it too. But I am much happier having weaned myself from its bosom.

majormajor 3y ago
"Instead most folks will make the contemptible choice of sucking off the corporate cock in exchange for a relatively easy and mindless, monotonous, consumptive, pathetic little life. I know this because I did it too. But I am much happier having weaned myself from its bosom." Yeah, it's not just "kids of today", is it? Almost all of us have chosen convenience over distributed, decentralized, robust, linkable, exportable platforms at some point. All the way back to the days of those corporate media and commercial advertising sites inside of AOL bringing more new users to the web than plain Usenet. I just don't think it's despicable at all. Running a discord channel instead of hosting a web forum? A lot easier to spin something up quickly with multimedia capabilities for a community without technical knowledge. It could all go away tomorrow, or slowly get shittified... and people will move on to something else again. People having to ask questions anew that have already been answered in the past? In-depth knowledge of yesterday's culture fading away? To me, that isn't a high price to pay. I talk to people on HN (walled garden), some others on forums (a mix of corporate walled garden or independent ones), some others on Discord (walled garden), it's all good enough IMO. Certainly not a moral failing for anyone. Saying something like "contemptible choice of sucking off the corporate cock in exchange for a relatively easy and mindless, monotonous, consumptive, pathetic little life" doesn't make me think you're any happier for avoiding it... those are not the words of the content.

majormajor 3y ago

"Instead most folks will make the contemptible choice of sucking off the corporate cock in exchange for a relatively easy and mindless, monotonous, consumptive, pathetic little life. I know this because I did it too. But I am much happier having weaned myself from its bosom." Yeah, it's not just "kids of today", is it? Almost all of us have chosen convenience over distributed, decentralized, robust, linkable, exportable platforms at some point. All the way back to the days of those corporate media and commercial advertising sites inside of AOL bringing more new users to the web than plain Usenet. I just don't think it's despicable at all. Running a discord channel instead of hosting a web forum? A lot easier to spin something up quickly with multimedia capabilities for a community without technical knowledge. It could all go away tomorrow, or slowly get shittified... and people will move on to something else again. People having to ask questions anew that have already been answered in the past? In-depth knowledge of yesterday's culture fading away? To me, that isn't a high price to pay. I talk to people on HN (walled garden), some others on forums (a mix of corporate walled garden or independent ones), some others on Discord (walled garden), it's all good enough IMO. Certainly not a moral failing for anyone. Saying something like "contemptible choice of sucking off the corporate cock in exchange for a relatively easy and mindless, monotonous, consumptive, pathetic little life" doesn't make me think you're any happier for avoiding it... those are not the words of the content.