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The "free" hosts were already harbingers of the end times. Once, having a dedicated IP address per machine stopped being a requirement, the personal website tha

The "free" hosts were already harbingers of the end times. Once, having a dedicated IP address per machine stopped being a requirement, the personal website that would be casually hosted whenever your PC is on was done.

duskwuff 1y ago
> the personal website that would be casually hosted whenever your PC is on I don't think that was ever really a thing. Which isn't to say that no one did it, but it was never a common practice. And free web site hosting came earlier than you're implying - sites like Tripod and Angelfire launched in the mid-1990s, at a time when most users were still on dialup.
- Apocryphon 1y ago
  earliest of the three, GeoCities launched in 1994
  - eterm 1y ago
    For added context, geocities was started before Netscape Navigator was launched, and geocities was actually launched before Internet Explorer 1.0.
  - p3rls 1y ago
    [dead]
- foxrider 1y ago
  Must be a regional thing, because where I live, mass internet adoption pretty much started in the 90s with the dedicated Ethernet connections. As such, every PC had its own IP address, it was a time before home routers. Later, the dreaded NAT was introduced, but the ISPs kept their "LAN" networks free. People hosted all sorts of things. It was a common practice for people to host an FTP server, a game server, an IRC and such on their home computers, and that "LAN" was not subject to the internet speed limit that was capped at around 600kb/s while the LAN would go as fast as the hardware allowed.
  - account42 1y ago
    That sounds like a very specific setup like a university dorm or perhaps managed apartment complex. But I doubt that was the norm for home internet connectivity anywhere, ever.
  - Apocryphon 1y ago
    Do you live in DARPA
- robinsonb5 1y ago
  People did indeed do that - and dynamic DNS didn't kill it, thanks to services like dyndns back when it was free.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    There are gratis DynDNS services?
    - duskwuff 1y ago
      There were in the early 2000s. They certainly didn't emerge as early as free web hosting, though.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        I meant that as a statement, that they are gratis today, paired with confusion, what they are talking about.

duskwuff 1y ago

> the personal website that would be casually hosted whenever your PC is on I don't think that was ever really a thing. Which isn't to say that no one did it, but it was never a common practice. And free web site hosting came earlier than you're implying - sites like Tripod and Angelfire launched in the mid-1990s, at a time when most users were still on dialup.

Apocryphon 1y ago
earliest of the three, GeoCities launched in 1994
- eterm 1y ago
  For added context, geocities was started before Netscape Navigator was launched, and geocities was actually launched before Internet Explorer 1.0.
- p3rls 1y ago
  [dead]
foxrider 1y ago
Must be a regional thing, because where I live, mass internet adoption pretty much started in the 90s with the dedicated Ethernet connections. As such, every PC had its own IP address, it was a time before home routers. Later, the dreaded NAT was introduced, but the ISPs kept their "LAN" networks free. People hosted all sorts of things. It was a common practice for people to host an FTP server, a game server, an IRC and such on their home computers, and that "LAN" was not subject to the internet speed limit that was capped at around 600kb/s while the LAN would go as fast as the hardware allowed.
- account42 1y ago
  That sounds like a very specific setup like a university dorm or perhaps managed apartment complex. But I doubt that was the norm for home internet connectivity anywhere, ever.
- Apocryphon 1y ago
  Do you live in DARPA
robinsonb5 1y ago
People did indeed do that - and dynamic DNS didn't kill it, thanks to services like dyndns back when it was free.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  There are gratis DynDNS services?
  - duskwuff 1y ago
    There were in the early 2000s. They certainly didn't emerge as early as free web hosting, though.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      I meant that as a statement, that they are gratis today, paired with confusion, what they are talking about.