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> the last refuge of what the old Internet was supposed to be like. What, how? HN is one of the most squeaky clean - corpo - heavily moderated sites with a ext

by tekla 3y ago

> the last refuge of what the old Internet was supposed to be like. What, how? HN is one of the most squeaky clean - corpo - heavily moderated sites with a extreme bubble centered around SV tech. Its basically the exact opposite of the old internet.

Auracle 3y ago
It’s primarily filled with intelligent people interested in technology. Before smartphones, that was the primary population of many (most?) websites.
- chx 3y ago
  > intelligent people [...] was the primary population of many (most?) websites. Oh sweet summer child.
  - derefr 3y ago
    GP post is correct in the general sense that the Internet used to be a thing only accessible to researchers at major universities; and therefore a place where everyone could be assumed to have some basic level of technical knowledge (if not common sense), and to consider themselves "an intellectual" of some kind or another. GP post is technically incorrect, though, in that during this time, the web didn't exist yet. The tech folks were on Usenet and IRC, not on "websites." (In fact, the creation of the web and "Eternal September" basically coincided: the web was the killer app that got regular people to sign up for Internet service. Despite HTML being designed for scientific-research use-cases, the web that actually formed in practice was "for normals" from the very beginning.)
    - chx 3y ago
      I came online, completely accidentally with the Eternal September crowd, we beta tested NCSA Mosaic mostly as a Usenet reader 'cos there were almost no websites yet. Still it was not only researchers, "Eternal" September is a reaction to earlier Septembers with a large influx of newbies. And even then there flame wars were a thing.
pjlegato 3y ago
Ha, agreed fully that the "old internet" was far more of a cesspool than most care to remember. We look back with rose-colored glasses. We remember the good and forget the bad. USENET was not only every bit as bad as the worst of 4chan -- it was worse, because there was no effective moderation. That said, there was also a large "signal" component in the "old internet" that is now lacking in most of the New Internet. Places like HN remain as lonely outposts of that lost world, where people wrote in entire paragraphs, to convey complex and meaningful ideas for mutual discussion -- rather than just firing punchy little 140 character epithets and 10 second insta-videos off into the void and then forgetting about them, moving on to the next flash in the goldfish attention span pan. That level of sustained, complex actually seems like it was more common on the "old Internet," even recognizing fully that the "old Internet" was also overflowing with dross and garbage.

by tekla 3y ago

Auracle 3y ago

It’s primarily filled with intelligent people interested in technology. Before smartphones, that was the primary population of many (most?) websites.

chx 3y ago
> intelligent people [...] was the primary population of many (most?) websites. Oh sweet summer child.
- derefr 3y ago
  GP post is correct in the general sense that the Internet used to be a thing only accessible to researchers at major universities; and therefore a place where everyone could be assumed to have some basic level of technical knowledge (if not common sense), and to consider themselves "an intellectual" of some kind or another. GP post is technically incorrect, though, in that during this time, the web didn't exist yet. The tech folks were on Usenet and IRC, not on "websites." (In fact, the creation of the web and "Eternal September" basically coincided: the web was the killer app that got regular people to sign up for Internet service. Despite HTML being designed for scientific-research use-cases, the web that actually formed in practice was "for normals" from the very beginning.)
  - chx 3y ago
    I came online, completely accidentally with the Eternal September crowd, we beta tested NCSA Mosaic mostly as a Usenet reader 'cos there were almost no websites yet. Still it was not only researchers, "Eternal" September is a reaction to earlier Septembers with a large influx of newbies. And even then there flame wars were a thing.

pjlegato 3y ago

Ha, agreed fully that the "old internet" was far more of a cesspool than most care to remember. We look back with rose-colored glasses. We remember the good and forget the bad. USENET was not only every bit as bad as the worst of 4chan -- it was worse, because there was no effective moderation. That said, there was also a large "signal" component in the "old internet" that is now lacking in most of the New Internet. Places like HN remain as lonely outposts of that lost world, where people wrote in entire paragraphs, to convey complex and meaningful ideas for mutual discussion -- rather than just firing punchy little 140 character epithets and 10 second insta-videos off into the void and then forgetting about them, moving on to the next flash in the goldfish attention span pan. That level of sustained, complex actually seems like it was more common on the "old Internet," even recognizing fully that the "old Internet" was also overflowing with dross and garbage.