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> I’m not sure if it is a matter of perspective or what. But I definitely wouldn’t look back at 90’s internet too nostalgically. It was legitimately hard to fin
by tivert 3y ago
> I’m not sure if it is a matter of perspective or what. But I definitely wouldn’t look back at 90’s internet too nostalgically. It was legitimately hard to find things. People made these quirky collections of websites because that was the only way to find interesting stuff. I didn’t know about websites until I heard about them IRL.
I think it's more complicated that "easier is better" assumption. The 90s internet may have been better precisely because things were hard to find, for instance.
It's kind of like a lot of technology, by solving one "problem" it makes worse ones. People might have complained about needing to walk everywhere before cars were invented, but once they got cars they stopped walking and started getting fat.
There's probably a sweet spot where both "less solution" and "more solution" are in fact worse.
- tlb 3y agoPart of what made the 90s internet exciting was the sense, whenever I found a useful site, that I too could make such a site. I could probably get v1 going in an afternoon, and it would be (partly) fun. I guess I could also make a 2020s content site, full of ads and signup clickthroughs, but I don't want to. Movies made this transition around the 1940s. It went from "if you could put on a play, you could rent some cameras and lights and make a popular movie" to "you need a 9-digit production budget and 3 years." I salute indie video game developers, who continue to resist this trend, making good 6-digit titles that are often more enjoyable than 9-digit titles.
- jackcosgrove 3y agoThat's the difference between a golden age and a silver age. The golden age has wide open frontiers, low barriers to entry, and low hanging fruit. The silver age is more closed off but also achieves greater sophistication.
- RajT88 3y ago> The 90s internet may have been better precisely because things were hard to find, for instance. The 90's internet was sort of like pawing through the piles of records at a thrift store. When you found something amazing, it felt really, really good. I rarely have those moments these days, but the sweet spot definitely felt like 2000-2010. Facebook was a great way to keep up with people and didn't have too many ads. There was enough "old, weird internet" going on.
- Gormo 3y ago> I think it's more complicated that "easier is better" assumption. The 90s internet may have been better precisely because things were hard to find, for instance. I think "easier is better" is flawed for a slightly different reason -- the early personal computing era and the early internet had a lot of creativity and a lot of people doing things on their own terms precisely because getting there required a learning curve. Once you learn how a fundamental technology works, you can adapt it, modify it, put it to your purposes, and truly own it in ways that open a world of possibility to you that go far beyond whatever short-term use cases the original designers had in mind. There's a reason why so many people doing interesting things with tech today are the ones who learned BASIC on their C64s or wrote HTML by hand to create their first GeoCities websites. People who got into technology when you had to read the manual tend to grok tech in a way that those who started off with overpolished consumer-appliances don't get exposed to without going to great lengths to deliberately seek it out.