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We got the Internet that advertising built. This was not how we (well some of us early 90s and before) users assumed it would pan out. It has been my experience

We got the Internet that advertising built. This was not how we (well some of us early 90s and before) users assumed it would pan out. It has been my experience that private Internet communities (groups, forums, messaging chats) are where the quality discussion happens these days. Away from the advertising and the controversy seeking (and anti-tech) mainstream media reporters.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
suzzer99 2y ago
Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it.
- pyrolistical 2y ago
  There are plenty of incentives to game this to distribute your whatever. It’s just that the moderation is pretty good
  - lazide 2y ago
    Also the crowd is brutally cynical, which tends to discourage a lot of it.
    - DocTomoe 2y ago
      To the contrary, this crowd is one of the most pleasant on the internet in 2024. A prime example of why gatekeeping is necessary and working.
      - PhilipRoman 2y ago
        Do you consider pleasant and cynical as mutually exclusive? I had a chat with a former politician and he was definitely pleasant, but extremely cynical, he pointed out instances of corruption everywhere. Although to be fair he was probably just being realistic not cynical. Cynicism is a good filter against dumb trends, hustler types and "emperor's clothes" situations.
- HackeREDDIT 2y ago
  Don't delude yourself. There is quite a lot of stuff being put here for ungenuine reasons. If you want to find a platform with true signal to noise golden ratio, you either have to find one on the rise, NOT made by a well known name, and place a timer on it, or you have to find one people think is long dead.
- tivert 2y ago
  > Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it. There's tons of incentive to game it. If it wasn't, why would all kinds of startups and tech companies have alert bots and slack channels implemented to allow their employees to swoop in and participate in HN threads that are relevant to their marketing interests? IIRC, the one's who've come clean about doing that have been fairly scrupulous about, but I'm sure they're just the tip of the iceberg.
  - suzzer99 2y ago
    I guess I just avoid those threads but stick to the science, history and programming threads.
    - InSteady 2y ago
      Same. We have simply learned to filter the noise. It helps around here that the noise takes on a similar and easily recognizable form in most cases.
      - suzzer99 2y ago
        What I like is that there's always someone on here who's a legit expert on any subject imaginable. Like someone can post a pic of an obscure tape drive from the 60s and almost instantly someone can tell you all about it. Or a rigorous back and forth on the horse-riding tribes who spawned the Indo-European languages. Or people can put in context some outlandish quantum computing headline in a way that you'd never get from the actual article. That stuff is valuable.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  lots of signal-to-noise -- you're just not looking in the right HN posts. lots of bots, and lots of spam, esp. in specific threads.
darmon333 2y ago
[flagged]
weitendorf 2y ago
Small private communities are contrary to some of the most important, biggest promises of the Internet (and the web): that it would be open and really big. It was supposed to be a place where some kid in rural Africa with only 8 years of schooling could learn how to be a software developer, or where people could naturally find and join communities too small to have a local presence (eg people really into collecting vacuum cleaners). I don't think it's just an advertising/cancel culture problem. It's partially a problem with the internet being so decentralized that spammers and scammers can operate with impunity, pushing a ton of work onto people running online communities because countries like India and Russia don't properly go after cybercriminals - even if someone SaaSified forums, this is still a significant burden. It's also kind of a UI problem: if Google search starts to suck and gets filled with trash, as has happened, it breaks the core pull-model of the web. If Reddit starts to suck and get filled with trash, as has happened, it breaks the core push-model of the web. Together the two kind of Embraced-Extended-Extinguished the web, but maybe something like an RSS reader, different web client (eg a browser that didn't nudge you into making google queries as the main way to operate it), and more capable search engine would be able to fix these.
- squigz 2y ago
  I'm not sure that GP meant entirely private communities - rather something like, for example, Discord communities, or online forums, where people can still join, but it's not entirely "public" in the sense of Twitter or the like.
- avh02 2y ago
  > that it would be open and really big. I think that was the aspiration, but nobody realized there were so many people who thought 5G caused corona (and similar lack of thought process) until it was too late.
  - ruszki 2y ago
    To rephrase it differently: it was not anticipated that the great majority of people cannot handle the amount of information, which is required for thoughtful decisions, that they happy to accept obvious contradictions to avoid self-reflection, and that they lack even basic suspicion of information's validity. We were naive to think that they can choose, or even want to choose between options, that they want to be free from central agencies to tell them what to think. We really thought that The Long Tail would happen in everything. But hey, those people won greatly, who can and want.
benfortuna 2y ago
In the 90s we dreamed of replicators, holodecks and supportive technologies. The crew of the Enterprise certainly didn't walk around with their head in their tri-quarters all day.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

suzzer99 2y ago

Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it.

pyrolistical 2y ago
There are plenty of incentives to game this to distribute your whatever. It’s just that the moderation is pretty good
- lazide 2y ago
  Also the crowd is brutally cynical, which tends to discourage a lot of it.
  - DocTomoe 2y ago
    To the contrary, this crowd is one of the most pleasant on the internet in 2024. A prime example of why gatekeeping is necessary and working.
    - PhilipRoman 2y ago
      Do you consider pleasant and cynical as mutually exclusive? I had a chat with a former politician and he was definitely pleasant, but extremely cynical, he pointed out instances of corruption everywhere. Although to be fair he was probably just being realistic not cynical. Cynicism is a good filter against dumb trends, hustler types and "emperor's clothes" situations.
HackeREDDIT 2y ago
Don't delude yourself. There is quite a lot of stuff being put here for ungenuine reasons. If you want to find a platform with true signal to noise golden ratio, you either have to find one on the rise, NOT made by a well known name, and place a timer on it, or you have to find one people think is long dead.
tivert 2y ago
> Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it. There's tons of incentive to game it. If it wasn't, why would all kinds of startups and tech companies have alert bots and slack channels implemented to allow their employees to swoop in and participate in HN threads that are relevant to their marketing interests? IIRC, the one's who've come clean about doing that have been fairly scrupulous about, but I'm sure they're just the tip of the iceberg.
- suzzer99 2y ago
  I guess I just avoid those threads but stick to the science, history and programming threads.
  - InSteady 2y ago
    Same. We have simply learned to filter the noise. It helps around here that the noise takes on a similar and easily recognizable form in most cases.
    - suzzer99 2y ago
      What I like is that there's always someone on here who's a legit expert on any subject imaginable. Like someone can post a pic of an obscure tape drive from the 60s and almost instantly someone can tell you all about it. Or a rigorous back and forth on the horse-riding tribes who spawned the Indo-European languages. Or people can put in context some outlandish quantum computing headline in a way that you'd never get from the actual article. That stuff is valuable.
red-iron-pine 2y ago
lots of signal-to-noise -- you're just not looking in the right HN posts. lots of bots, and lots of spam, esp. in specific threads.

darmon333 2y ago

[flagged]

weitendorf 2y ago

Small private communities are contrary to some of the most important, biggest promises of the Internet (and the web): that it would be open and really big. It was supposed to be a place where some kid in rural Africa with only 8 years of schooling could learn how to be a software developer, or where people could naturally find and join communities too small to have a local presence (eg people really into collecting vacuum cleaners). I don't think it's just an advertising/cancel culture problem. It's partially a problem with the internet being so decentralized that spammers and scammers can operate with impunity, pushing a ton of work onto people running online communities because countries like India and Russia don't properly go after cybercriminals - even if someone SaaSified forums, this is still a significant burden. It's also kind of a UI problem: if Google search starts to suck and gets filled with trash, as has happened, it breaks the core pull-model of the web. If Reddit starts to suck and get filled with trash, as has happened, it breaks the core push-model of the web. Together the two kind of Embraced-Extended-Extinguished the web, but maybe something like an RSS reader, different web client (eg a browser that didn't nudge you into making google queries as the main way to operate it), and more capable search engine would be able to fix these.

squigz 2y ago
I'm not sure that GP meant entirely private communities - rather something like, for example, Discord communities, or online forums, where people can still join, but it's not entirely "public" in the sense of Twitter or the like.
avh02 2y ago
> that it would be open and really big. I think that was the aspiration, but nobody realized there were so many people who thought 5G caused corona (and similar lack of thought process) until it was too late.
- ruszki 2y ago
  To rephrase it differently: it was not anticipated that the great majority of people cannot handle the amount of information, which is required for thoughtful decisions, that they happy to accept obvious contradictions to avoid self-reflection, and that they lack even basic suspicion of information's validity. We were naive to think that they can choose, or even want to choose between options, that they want to be free from central agencies to tell them what to think. We really thought that The Long Tail would happen in everything. But hey, those people won greatly, who can and want.

benfortuna 2y ago

In the 90s we dreamed of replicators, holodecks and supportive technologies. The crew of the Enterprise certainly didn't walk around with their head in their tri-quarters all day.