9 ms·

The Antisocial Network: How the 90s Internet Died Like Diaryland (2014)

31 points by vector_spaces 2y ago

jasontlouro 2y ago
Nostalgia on the internet, particularly with social networks / online communities, is real and I do think there will be a revival of the 'old way' of how folks communicated online. Hacker news is a good example of this that's persisted, actually. But I'm hopeful we get some social networks that are more like the old web in their architecture.
- dartos 2y ago
  It already has. Discord is HUGE and is basically internet chat rooms with voice chat and emoji
  - jelling 2y ago
    IRC is back and I love it
    - ssl-3 2y ago
      Discord is fun and useful, but it's doesn't feel the same way that IRC did 30 years ago. Gone are the days when the "owner" of a channel or name was the person who got there first (or the person who was friends with a server admin), and DCC chats and file transfers, clever customizable scripts that would alter the entire interface to be closer to one's liking, a wide choice of clients, alternate nicks to use today because someone else was using yours (maybe deliberately, maybe not), and with netsplits just adding an element of chaos to the mix, and a seemingly-universal avoidance of getting money involved in the game at all. (And maybe we're better without some of those aspects, but it's still not the same.)
      - futureduck 2y ago
        i feel the same for now matrix seems to be the closest to this experience (but still not quite)
      - dartos 2y ago
        > Gone are the days when the "owner" of a channel or name was the person who got there first (or the person who was friends with a server admin) That’s exactly how discord servers are made > clever customizable scripts that would alter the entire interface to be closer to one's liking, a wide choice of clients While not official, discord has several third party clients. The discord client is an electron app, so it’s just using discords api. Not to say discord is perfect or the be all end all, but it shows a strong trend back towards real time interaction and away from posts. I hope matrix picks up when discord starts playing ads.
        ssl-3 2y ago
        >That’s exactly how discord servers are made But Discord "servers" are completely different things compared to either IRC servers or IRC channels. "Apples and oranges have similarities" is a cool story and all, but they're still apples and they're still oranges. >While not official, discord has several third party clients. The discord client is an electron app, so it’s just using discords api. IRC never really had this "official" or "first-party" problem to contend with at all. After it escaped the University of Oulu, people all over were creating their own incarnations of both clients and servers -- and running them independently, without centralized control. (This happened over the span of only a few months.) >Not to say discord is perfect or the be all end all, but it shows a strong trend back towards [...] ...something that is useful and fun, and that is not like IRC.
        dartos 2y ago
        That’s all well and good, but I never said anything about discord being like IRC, just that it’s popularity demonstrates the return of internet chat rooms
    - whoopdedo 2y ago
      Discord isn't IRC. Discord is AIM.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - 0xEF 2y ago
        I'd argue it's far closer unstructured to IRC than AIM. I don't recall being invited to different AIM servers, etc. To me, Discord is like packaging IRC functionality in an ICQ box, which, for some reason, everyone seems to have forgotten about in these discussions.
        0xEF 2y ago
        Correction: closer in structure, not "unstructured." Auto-correct is still nobody's friend after all these years.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Discord in 2024 is perceptually slower than an IRC client running in 2000 on hardware with 1000x fewer MIPS. Socially it's OK, as a piece of software it's dire.
      - dartos 2y ago
        The backend is pretty good (and getting worse.) The frontend is awful
  - senectus1 2y ago
    with a really unintuitive and inefficient interface. also they're ruining the experience with attempts to monetize constantly in your face
    - musicale 2y ago
      It's going to get worse. ;-(
    - RamblingCTO 2y ago
      Absolutely. It's so annoying, it's way too much going on everywhere. It's just not any fun.
    - dartos 2y ago
      My point isn’t about the interface, but the mode of communication
- hi_hi 2y ago
  I would love this, but I'm afraid the genie has already been let out. The magic was due to the friction involved. Getting into a chatroom required effort. Getting the necessary programs via CD or floppy disk. Getting your modem working with the computer, dialling up, the godawful screeching. Navigating the weird interfaces and novel programs. Then boom, you'd be chatting with people from the other side of the world, like meeting aliens from across the galaxy. They would be (mostly) nice, mature and interesting, having also navigated the friction to be there. I remember sitting with my elder brother in a quiz chat room, full of knowledgable and intelligent people. He was using an encyclopedia book (imagine!) as a source of questions, trying to appear intelligent. They had none of it and quickly called out our ruse! Then I asked a question about NURBS which I'd been studying, and received praise for a great question. It all demanded effort, but rewarded it at the same time. I don't know how you can collectively go back to that.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    I'm now imagining a chat-service where initial access to each channel/room requires you to run your computer for ~6 hours overnight solving a mathematical puzzle, just to put "skin in the game."
    - pjc50 2y ago
      A service would arise so you could outsource that inconvenience for a small fee.
  - nmeagent 2y ago
    > The magic was due to the friction involved. We might get some of that friction back if remote attestation succeeds in ruining the Internet for those of us who rely on free software. Connecting with any community will be trickier over mesh networking or whatever else we're left with.
- partyguy 2y ago
  Agree! I started SpaceHey a few years ago as a MySpace revival and it organically grew to 1M+ users. There's really a place for nostalgic social media (not only regarding the design, but also the feature set and vibe in general)
mastazi 2y ago
I am a migrant from a non-English-speaking country, and I used to be a journalist a long time ago. Even though I migrated many years ago, I am still surprised when I see spelling mistakes like the one in this article, which is right up there in the deck (the line just under the headline). Back in Italy, someone would be having a bad day over something like this, but in the English-speaking world it seems to be commonplace, even in major publications, corporate websites, etc. > Before Facebook or Twitter, there was Diaryland. But it’s creator just wasn’t a Zuckerberg and it faded into oblivion. I think that this is because English ortography is highly nonphonemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography It's an interesting topic!
- keiferski 2y ago
  It’s mostly because of laziness and a hostility toward the idea of “correctness” in language use, and it goes back many, many decades. See John Simon’s book Paradigms Lost (from 1981!) for a brutally amusing take on these common errors. When it becomes socially unacceptable to insist on standards and correctness, people either don’t learn how to write properly - or they are cowed into silence when making corrections.
  - denkmoon 2y ago
    What problem does this kind of correctness solve? We all understand what is meant by the sentence despite the flaw. I'm reasonably proficient at English when compared to my colleagues but unless they've made an error that dramatically changes the meaning of their sentence, correcting it achieves nothing in my experience.
    - keiferski 2y ago
      Because language isn’t about being understood by the lowest common denominator, it’s about expressing ideas and feelings. Sloppiness of language results in sloppiness of thought. If language were purely about being understood by others, then we culd rite lyke dis all da tyme. It is also just disgraceful and disrespectful toward something as magnificent and powerful as language, akin to scribbling on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It’s one thing to know the rules and intelligently break them in a novel way, but the lack of correctness we’re talking about is merely laziness. Just to reiterate here: the issue isn’t so much about minor unintended errors, it’s about the attitude that minor errors are acceptable and that aspiring for some kind of excellence is discouraged.
eddaross 2y ago
I think what a lot of us also might miss is the sense of ownership and creativity that came with personal websites and blogs. People used to have their little corner of the internet where they could express themselves however they wanted, whether it was through HTML coding or just sharing their thoughts. Now it seems like almost every blog is trying to sell you something.
- musicale 2y ago
  For some reason "influencer" is considered good, but "advertiser" is not. Though youtube promoting videos that make money is an unsurprising feedback loop.
- watwut 2y ago
  Personal blogs without SEO do still kind of exist - but the way searching algorithms work, the "organic" content just wont show up. You can have one, but basically no one will ever find it and you will give up.
musicale 2y ago
> Part of the reason why Diaryland died was that Smales could never figure out how to translate the site's pool of users into actual profit. Here's the instruction manual used by Facebook, Twitter, and everyone else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification I'm impressed that Diaryland didn't decide to grind up its users and turn them into money. For that reason alone, it is immediately (and probably permanently) superior to Facebook and Xitter.

31 points by vector_spaces 2y ago

Nostalgia on the internet, particularly with social networks / online communities, is real and I do think there will be a revival of the 'old way' of how folks communicated online. Hacker news is a good example of this that's persisted, actually. But I'm hopeful we get some social networks that are more like the old web in their architecture.

dartos 2y ago
It already has. Discord is HUGE and is basically internet chat rooms with voice chat and emoji
- jelling 2y ago
  IRC is back and I love it
  - ssl-3 2y ago
    Discord is fun and useful, but it's doesn't feel the same way that IRC did 30 years ago. Gone are the days when the "owner" of a channel or name was the person who got there first (or the person who was friends with a server admin), and DCC chats and file transfers, clever customizable scripts that would alter the entire interface to be closer to one's liking, a wide choice of clients, alternate nicks to use today because someone else was using yours (maybe deliberately, maybe not), and with netsplits just adding an element of chaos to the mix, and a seemingly-universal avoidance of getting money involved in the game at all. (And maybe we're better without some of those aspects, but it's still not the same.)
    - futureduck 2y ago
      i feel the same for now matrix seems to be the closest to this experience (but still not quite)
    - dartos 2y ago
      > Gone are the days when the "owner" of a channel or name was the person who got there first (or the person who was friends with a server admin) That’s exactly how discord servers are made > clever customizable scripts that would alter the entire interface to be closer to one's liking, a wide choice of clients While not official, discord has several third party clients. The discord client is an electron app, so it’s just using discords api. Not to say discord is perfect or the be all end all, but it shows a strong trend back towards real time interaction and away from posts. I hope matrix picks up when discord starts playing ads.
      - ssl-3 2y ago
        >That’s exactly how discord servers are made But Discord "servers" are completely different things compared to either IRC servers or IRC channels. "Apples and oranges have similarities" is a cool story and all, but they're still apples and they're still oranges. >While not official, discord has several third party clients. The discord client is an electron app, so it’s just using discords api. IRC never really had this "official" or "first-party" problem to contend with at all. After it escaped the University of Oulu, people all over were creating their own incarnations of both clients and servers -- and running them independently, without centralized control. (This happened over the span of only a few months.) >Not to say discord is perfect or the be all end all, but it shows a strong trend back towards [...] ...something that is useful and fun, and that is not like IRC.
        dartos 2y ago
        That’s all well and good, but I never said anything about discord being like IRC, just that it’s popularity demonstrates the return of internet chat rooms
  - whoopdedo 2y ago
    Discord isn't IRC. Discord is AIM.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 0xEF 2y ago
      I'd argue it's far closer unstructured to IRC than AIM. I don't recall being invited to different AIM servers, etc. To me, Discord is like packaging IRC functionality in an ICQ box, which, for some reason, everyone seems to have forgotten about in these discussions.
      - 0xEF 2y ago
        Correction: closer in structure, not "unstructured." Auto-correct is still nobody's friend after all these years.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Discord in 2024 is perceptually slower than an IRC client running in 2000 on hardware with 1000x fewer MIPS. Socially it's OK, as a piece of software it's dire.
    - dartos 2y ago
      The backend is pretty good (and getting worse.) The frontend is awful
- senectus1 2y ago
  with a really unintuitive and inefficient interface. also they're ruining the experience with attempts to monetize constantly in your face
  - musicale 2y ago
    It's going to get worse. ;-(
  - RamblingCTO 2y ago
    Absolutely. It's so annoying, it's way too much going on everywhere. It's just not any fun.
  - dartos 2y ago
    My point isn’t about the interface, but the mode of communication
hi_hi 2y ago
I would love this, but I'm afraid the genie has already been let out. The magic was due to the friction involved. Getting into a chatroom required effort. Getting the necessary programs via CD or floppy disk. Getting your modem working with the computer, dialling up, the godawful screeching. Navigating the weird interfaces and novel programs. Then boom, you'd be chatting with people from the other side of the world, like meeting aliens from across the galaxy. They would be (mostly) nice, mature and interesting, having also navigated the friction to be there. I remember sitting with my elder brother in a quiz chat room, full of knowledgable and intelligent people. He was using an encyclopedia book (imagine!) as a source of questions, trying to appear intelligent. They had none of it and quickly called out our ruse! Then I asked a question about NURBS which I'd been studying, and received praise for a great question. It all demanded effort, but rewarded it at the same time. I don't know how you can collectively go back to that.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  I'm now imagining a chat-service where initial access to each channel/room requires you to run your computer for ~6 hours overnight solving a mathematical puzzle, just to put "skin in the game."
  - pjc50 2y ago
    A service would arise so you could outsource that inconvenience for a small fee.
- nmeagent 2y ago
  > The magic was due to the friction involved. We might get some of that friction back if remote attestation succeeds in ruining the Internet for those of us who rely on free software. Connecting with any community will be trickier over mesh networking or whatever else we're left with.
partyguy 2y ago
Agree! I started SpaceHey a few years ago as a MySpace revival and it organically grew to 1M+ users. There's really a place for nostalgic social media (not only regarding the design, but also the feature set and vibe in general)

mastazi 2y ago

I am a migrant from a non-English-speaking country, and I used to be a journalist a long time ago. Even though I migrated many years ago, I am still surprised when I see spelling mistakes like the one in this article, which is right up there in the deck (the line just under the headline). Back in Italy, someone would be having a bad day over something like this, but in the English-speaking world it seems to be commonplace, even in major publications, corporate websites, etc. > Before Facebook or Twitter, there was Diaryland. But it’s creator just wasn’t a Zuckerberg and it faded into oblivion. I think that this is because English ortography is highly nonphonemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography It's an interesting topic!

keiferski 2y ago
It’s mostly because of laziness and a hostility toward the idea of “correctness” in language use, and it goes back many, many decades. See John Simon’s book Paradigms Lost (from 1981!) for a brutally amusing take on these common errors. When it becomes socially unacceptable to insist on standards and correctness, people either don’t learn how to write properly - or they are cowed into silence when making corrections.
- denkmoon 2y ago
  What problem does this kind of correctness solve? We all understand what is meant by the sentence despite the flaw. I'm reasonably proficient at English when compared to my colleagues but unless they've made an error that dramatically changes the meaning of their sentence, correcting it achieves nothing in my experience.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    Because language isn’t about being understood by the lowest common denominator, it’s about expressing ideas and feelings. Sloppiness of language results in sloppiness of thought. If language were purely about being understood by others, then we culd rite lyke dis all da tyme. It is also just disgraceful and disrespectful toward something as magnificent and powerful as language, akin to scribbling on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It’s one thing to know the rules and intelligently break them in a novel way, but the lack of correctness we’re talking about is merely laziness. Just to reiterate here: the issue isn’t so much about minor unintended errors, it’s about the attitude that minor errors are acceptable and that aspiring for some kind of excellence is discouraged.

eddaross 2y ago

I think what a lot of us also might miss is the sense of ownership and creativity that came with personal websites and blogs. People used to have their little corner of the internet where they could express themselves however they wanted, whether it was through HTML coding or just sharing their thoughts. Now it seems like almost every blog is trying to sell you something.

musicale 2y ago
For some reason "influencer" is considered good, but "advertiser" is not. Though youtube promoting videos that make money is an unsurprising feedback loop.
watwut 2y ago
Personal blogs without SEO do still kind of exist - but the way searching algorithms work, the "organic" content just wont show up. You can have one, but basically no one will ever find it and you will give up.

musicale 2y ago

> Part of the reason why Diaryland died was that Smales could never figure out how to translate the site's pool of users into actual profit. Here's the instruction manual used by Facebook, Twitter, and everyone else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification I'm impressed that Diaryland didn't decide to grind up its users and turn them into money. For that reason alone, it is immediately (and probably permanently) superior to Facebook and Xitter.