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I do not think internet was more friendly per se back then, and I am not sure this is the general argument or feeling on being nostalgic about that era either.

I do not think internet was more friendly per se back then, and I am not sure this is the general argument or feeling on being nostalgic about that era either. If it is, then it is definitely wrong, but that does not mean that there are no reasons to miss the old internet. I think what made internet interesting back then was that it was much less monetised, more liberating as in providing opportunities and giving access to stuff that were just inaccessible before. Piracy was in its prime, and to a big extent it felt it was about pushing against or breaking whatever rules the world was trying to impose on people. It was not friendly, paedophiles were praying on kids on IRCs, there was definitely sexism, people would get harassed online, you had to be careful as to what kind of information you were putting online, never put one's real name there and definitely not photos or bank info or anything that nowadays is common place. One had to know how to protect oneself online. It was not free as in cheap or easily accessible either, it was actually quite expensive, but again somehow one found ways to get around stuff like that, through computers in public libraries, breaking through some neighbour's wifi, gathering at a friend whose father had internet for work reasons, getting access to a university's wifi and going around with a laptop to find a place with good signal or staying in internet cafes overnight when it was cheaper. The point is that one would make all this effort needed to get access to it and go around these issues because it was a window to the world, esp for more introvert nerds. I definitely appreciate having such easy access to it nowadays and the internet being, generally speaking, safer. I just wish it felt less of a prison to escape from/fight against an algorithm or tightly controlled "platforms" that want to hook you up to show you more ads, and more as a means of liberation and it used to feel like.

torginus 2y ago
History has shown that friendliness is a terrible goal to aim for in of itself - the modern approach to achieving 'friendliness' on Reddit for example, is to brutally crush any dissent by downvoting, removing content and banning users who go against the grain in any given subreddit. The resulting discussions look like to outsiders like a happy community of friendly people who generally agree on most stuff, yet when you try to actualy participate in these discussions you'll find out just how crappily they are run. Most people leave at this point and the only ones who stay are those whose desire for validation is greater than the desire to express their own opinions.
- freehorse 2y ago
  Well, that and reddit mods banning "uncomfortable" (to them) discussions and opinions. A few years ago reddit made an active decision to purge communities around topics that they decided were not good for the platform. The result was that a lot of nuanced communities and places for discussion disappeared from the internet because some people outside these communities decided that they were too "unfriendly" and offensive. They were not perfect, but there was a place for nuance to be expressed there that nowadays internet lacks.
  - torginus 2y ago
    Yeah, that too. Weird how easily these things get forgotten. That means they got away with it. Probably pissed off a lot of people too, who I'd wager didn't stick around. Wonder where they went though. It's often quoted that 80% of content is made by 1% of users, and usually those people are the first in, and if you lose them, it's over for you.
    - freehorse 2y ago
      From the communities I was around some went to discord, but most did not really stick and discord is not very suitable platform for stuff like that imo. There were also some reddit clones popping up at the time, but they were politically charged just to another direction of what reddit was taking, not really spaces to hold that diversity and nuance either. Some also moved on to some other subreddits that would draw less attention of specific kind. In time afaik the old communities faded away or broken to smaller pieces, fragmented into smaller echo chambers and the ones not fitting in any of them just moved on. There are not really places to hold nuance in the internet now. What I liked in reddit was that you would get all people coming from all these different references at the same place and sometimes indeed interesting things would happen in that intersection. And thing is, the internet was already largely shit at that point. I guess there is no specific time point to point when the internet broke because it seems it can always break more. > It's often quoted that 80% of content is made by 1% of users, and usually those people are the first in, and if you lose them, it's over for you. Maybe why meta pushes ai content creation so bad.

torginus 2y ago

History has shown that friendliness is a terrible goal to aim for in of itself - the modern approach to achieving 'friendliness' on Reddit for example, is to brutally crush any dissent by downvoting, removing content and banning users who go against the grain in any given subreddit. The resulting discussions look like to outsiders like a happy community of friendly people who generally agree on most stuff, yet when you try to actualy participate in these discussions you'll find out just how crappily they are run. Most people leave at this point and the only ones who stay are those whose desire for validation is greater than the desire to express their own opinions.

freehorse 2y ago
Well, that and reddit mods banning "uncomfortable" (to them) discussions and opinions. A few years ago reddit made an active decision to purge communities around topics that they decided were not good for the platform. The result was that a lot of nuanced communities and places for discussion disappeared from the internet because some people outside these communities decided that they were too "unfriendly" and offensive. They were not perfect, but there was a place for nuance to be expressed there that nowadays internet lacks.
- torginus 2y ago
  Yeah, that too. Weird how easily these things get forgotten. That means they got away with it. Probably pissed off a lot of people too, who I'd wager didn't stick around. Wonder where they went though. It's often quoted that 80% of content is made by 1% of users, and usually those people are the first in, and if you lose them, it's over for you.
  - freehorse 2y ago
    From the communities I was around some went to discord, but most did not really stick and discord is not very suitable platform for stuff like that imo. There were also some reddit clones popping up at the time, but they were politically charged just to another direction of what reddit was taking, not really spaces to hold that diversity and nuance either. Some also moved on to some other subreddits that would draw less attention of specific kind. In time afaik the old communities faded away or broken to smaller pieces, fragmented into smaller echo chambers and the ones not fitting in any of them just moved on. There are not really places to hold nuance in the internet now. What I liked in reddit was that you would get all people coming from all these different references at the same place and sometimes indeed interesting things would happen in that intersection. And thing is, the internet was already largely shit at that point. I guess there is no specific time point to point when the internet broke because it seems it can always break more. > It's often quoted that 80% of content is made by 1% of users, and usually those people are the first in, and if you lose them, it's over for you. Maybe why meta pushes ai content creation so bad.