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"I wanted something that expressed the fun I had using the internet, as well as hit on the skill, and yes, endurance necessary to use it well." I miss how fun

"I wanted something that expressed the fun I had using the internet, as well as hit on the skill, and yes, endurance necessary to use it well." I miss how fun the internet used to be. There is something lost with the current torrent of entertainment that is readily fed through popularity based algorithms. Hacker news is about as close as I get to that feeling, but it’s not the same since it’s completely hub and spoke. Youtube can come close in a similar way, if you stay away from shorts. But, what I really miss, is how often I found myself falling off the web into other places on the internet. gopher and telnet and archie. There were these other places to explore, and because the net was so much smaller it made sense to explore. FWIW, I’ve had a similar sensation playing on a shared minecraft server recently, the stuff people build is so varying and interesting.

munk-a 3y ago
I'd argue that the internet today actually requires more skill to use than it did back in the day - it's difficult to avoid the content blackholes that exist and, if you're truly masochistic, you could try the "Browse through twenty site links without ever submitting a request to facebook.com" challenge - assuming you're not using an ad/domain blocker (which you should be). There are a lot of extremely niche things on the internet still and I agree that Youtube (and Nebula!) are where they mostly reside. Sadly gone are the days when just typing up some rudimentary HTML would qualify as engaging content to most people... I met my wife on a MUD - but now you need webcams, editors and production value to make content.
- bookofjoe 3y ago
  Not true: I've been publishing posts on my blog multiple times daily for almost 20 years without a webcam, editor, or production value.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Even "I'm Feeling Lucky" was interesting long ago. Back then, the median website was pretty interesting, and you had a pretty good chance of finding something great randomly. Now, it just sends you to canned, boring product SERP pages and Wikipedia pages. If you actually had an interface that pointed you to a uniformly random web site, you're mostly going to get SEO spam and machine-generated content.
raytopia 3y ago
You may really enjoy Neocities [0] it is full of websites that you explore. [0] https://neocities.org/ https://neocities.org/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

munk-a 3y ago

I'd argue that the internet today actually requires more skill to use than it did back in the day - it's difficult to avoid the content blackholes that exist and, if you're truly masochistic, you could try the "Browse through twenty site links without ever submitting a request to facebook.com" challenge - assuming you're not using an ad/domain blocker (which you should be). There are a lot of extremely niche things on the internet still and I agree that Youtube (and Nebula!) are where they mostly reside. Sadly gone are the days when just typing up some rudimentary HTML would qualify as engaging content to most people... I met my wife on a MUD - but now you need webcams, editors and production value to make content.

bookofjoe 3y ago
Not true: I've been publishing posts on my blog multiple times daily for almost 20 years without a webcam, editor, or production value.
ryandrake 3y ago
Even "I'm Feeling Lucky" was interesting long ago. Back then, the median website was pretty interesting, and you had a pretty good chance of finding something great randomly. Now, it just sends you to canned, boring product SERP pages and Wikipedia pages. If you actually had an interface that pointed you to a uniformly random web site, you're mostly going to get SEO spam and machine-generated content.

raytopia 3y ago

You may really enjoy Neocities [0] it is full of websites that you explore. [0] https://neocities.org/ https://neocities.org/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]