4 ms·

There was also .001% of the content there is now. The Internet of 2000 was microscopic. Now everyone can create content, without any of the friction of hosting

by jfengel 2mo ago

There was also .001% of the content there is now. The Internet of 2000 was microscopic. Now everyone can create content, without any of the friction of hosting it. The vast majority of it is crap, but that was always the case. The main difference between now and 30 years ago is that the Internet is vastly more diverse. It isn't just other CS majors any more. Now everyone gets to wade in the vast crap pool looking for the smidge of things that appeal to them. Meanwhile the CS majors still host their own stuff, because they can, and you find out about it via the same word of mouth.

inigyou 2mo ago
The .001% was the top .001% of today's content. The other 99.999% we gained was spam aimed at getting money while providing minimal value and taking minimal effort.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2mo ago
  can’t wait to hear about how some 9/11 truther blog was the cream of the crop. I’m surprised you can see anything through those rose coloured glasses. the most charitable interpretation is that the internet used to more exclusively cater to your interests specifically, which i’m sure is true. try asking most women about the internet then vs now. there are still scumbags, and one could reasonably argue that they’ve gotten worse, but at least theres more to do now.
  - pwdisswordfishq 2mo ago
    > can’t wait to hear about how some 9/11 truther blog was the cream of the crop Compared to the torrent of AI slop today, it was.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      This is true.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
tombert 2mo ago
> It isn't just other CS majors any more. Hey, that's not fair! It also had nine year olds who bought a book about HTML and made shitty sites on Geocities!
- modriano 2mo ago
  Those were just CS majors before they majored in CS.
  - KPGv2 2mo ago
    Jokes on you, I majored in pure mathematics.
  - queenkjuul 2mo ago
    I learned HTML from a book when i was 9 and never majored in CS
- scantron4 2mo ago
  I WAS THIRTEEN
fl4regun 2mo ago
i don't think it's fair to say it was just CS majors, I'm a 90s baby and i was on the web in the 2000s when i was in middle school, I still remember reading web comics and forums, messaging people on MSN and playing MMOs with online friends, looking up gameFAQs to get past sticking points. This could just be me, but it felt more social and personal.
- gmadsen 2mo ago
  The 90s were very different from the 2000s
  - fl4regun 2mo ago
    the commenter was talking about the internet in the 2000s, as am I. I was only born in the 90s.
    - gmadsen 2mo ago
      i thought it was clear we were talking about internet in the 90s, the original commentor said three decades ago...
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
  Yeah it feels like people aren't making friends online as much nowadays. Everyone is chasing clout, and if you get a rando who sends you a friendly message, it's quite likely a pig butchering scam.
  - bandrami 2mo ago
    In the early aughts the web was largely anonymous (MySpace and Friendster were just starting out and Facebook was still a Ivy league only thing). We thought we wanted to be able to find and be found by specific people, but in retrospect I definitely regret that change. It was better when I was just a randomish string of characters.
docjay 2mo ago
It sounds like you agreed with them from the other direction. “The internet of yesteryear felt more special.” - “Nah, there wasn’t as much slop back then and now it’s a crap pool that anyone can wade into and look for scraps.”
- jfengel 2mo ago
  I'm saying the amount of crap is the same, but it used to be all our crap and not crap targeted at 12 year old Korean girls or 77 year old Uruguayan grandmas. It was more special, to us specifically. But I'm claiming that the amount of crap just for us is still there. It's just easy to be distracted by the billions of content producers that are easier to find. Note that I wasn't talking about slop, which does indeed risk a true Dead Internet. But people were pining for Geocities long before AI.
  - Tanoc 2mo ago
    I would argue that a lot of our crap can't be produced anymore because of automated moderation and the DMCA. Remixes of old videogame songs, animutations, fan lore websites, these all get targeted constantly, and it's disenfranchising and disincentivizing people. They're scared whatever thing they made is going to get a takedown request, or the website they upload it to will not accept it because it's legally toxic. And before anything is said, no, not everyone uploaded to their own site even back in the late '90s. We had web portals like Newgrounds and Fark where they'd put stuff. It's when we abandoned web portals and moved to social media platforms that the suffocation began to happen, because the point wasn't to show other people in your community something you made, the point became grabbing as many generic views as possible. First that was for virality, then it was for AdSense money. What's funny is that back in the day if you mistyped a URL it'd go nowhere. Then for a while domain squatters took over, and they'd lead you to dead end traps slinging porn or pyramid schemes. Those dead end traps were on the fringes however, where nobody really ventured. Nowadays everywhere is designed like that, except instead of porn it's corporate ads, and the pyramid schemes are run by people making videos those corporate ads play over.
  - docjay 2mo ago
    I didn’t take the OP to mean the raw amount of data was more catered to their interests, but rather that the personality of the internet was different. I said it sounded like you agreed because you listed the symptoms of that difference. The OP is talking about the “Web 1.5” era, and it seems like you have the requisite patina to remember it too. It really was an entirely different world. Server side technologies just became common, allowing for dynamic websites and user submitted content, which was the birth of forums and aggregators of user content. They tended to cater to special interests and had their own culture, inside jokes, and standards (if any). It was common to be a member of a half dozen or more forums or interest sites, and it was more rare to already know a friend that was part of them. Instead you interacted and became friends with strangers, rather than upload your contacts list and send out friend requests. There was Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Fark, Something Awful, Albino Blacksheep, eBaum’s World, Slashdot, Homestar Runner, YTMND, DeviantArt, Worth 1000, Maddox, Stile Project, Consumption Junction, Snopes, The Smoking Gun, Stick Death, The Perry Bible Fellowship, Penny Arcade, Threadless, Newgrounds, Zombo.com, Weebl's Stuff, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Badger Badger Badger, Fenslerfilm, Break.com, Stupid.com, Ogrish, Hot or Not, RateMyProfessors, Rate My Face, Stupidvideos, Questionable Content, How Stuff Works, Something Positive, IGN, Daily Kos, DeadJournal, LiveJournal, IRC, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Trillian… even of those that still “exist”, they don’t still exist. I’m not saying those sites were necessarily better, but the personality and environment that created them no longer exists. Websites were created just because of an inside joke on a forum somewhere, which then became cultural memes that were talked about at work and school. It was the era of “Have you seen this website?!” and “Joined: 2002” bragging, and that personality is gone.
JKCalhoun 2mo ago
Yeah, that was fine. It meant I got out riding my bike more often.

by jfengel 2mo ago

inigyou 2mo ago

The .001% was the top .001% of today's content. The other 99.999% we gained was spam aimed at getting money while providing minimal value and taking minimal effort.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2mo ago
can’t wait to hear about how some 9/11 truther blog was the cream of the crop. I’m surprised you can see anything through those rose coloured glasses. the most charitable interpretation is that the internet used to more exclusively cater to your interests specifically, which i’m sure is true. try asking most women about the internet then vs now. there are still scumbags, and one could reasonably argue that they’ve gotten worse, but at least theres more to do now.
- pwdisswordfishq 2mo ago
  > can’t wait to hear about how some 9/11 truther blog was the cream of the crop Compared to the torrent of AI slop today, it was.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    This is true.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

tombert 2mo ago

> It isn't just other CS majors any more. Hey, that's not fair! It also had nine year olds who bought a book about HTML and made shitty sites on Geocities!

modriano 2mo ago
Those were just CS majors before they majored in CS.
- KPGv2 2mo ago
  Jokes on you, I majored in pure mathematics.
- queenkjuul 2mo ago
  I learned HTML from a book when i was 9 and never majored in CS
scantron4 2mo ago
I WAS THIRTEEN

fl4regun 2mo ago

i don't think it's fair to say it was just CS majors, I'm a 90s baby and i was on the web in the 2000s when i was in middle school, I still remember reading web comics and forums, messaging people on MSN and playing MMOs with online friends, looking up gameFAQs to get past sticking points. This could just be me, but it felt more social and personal.

gmadsen 2mo ago
The 90s were very different from the 2000s
- fl4regun 2mo ago
  the commenter was talking about the internet in the 2000s, as am I. I was only born in the 90s.
  - gmadsen 2mo ago
    i thought it was clear we were talking about internet in the 90s, the original commentor said three decades ago...
0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
Yeah it feels like people aren't making friends online as much nowadays. Everyone is chasing clout, and if you get a rando who sends you a friendly message, it's quite likely a pig butchering scam.
- bandrami 2mo ago
  In the early aughts the web was largely anonymous (MySpace and Friendster were just starting out and Facebook was still a Ivy league only thing). We thought we wanted to be able to find and be found by specific people, but in retrospect I definitely regret that change. It was better when I was just a randomish string of characters.

docjay 2mo ago

It sounds like you agreed with them from the other direction. “The internet of yesteryear felt more special.” - “Nah, there wasn’t as much slop back then and now it’s a crap pool that anyone can wade into and look for scraps.”

jfengel 2mo ago
I'm saying the amount of crap is the same, but it used to be all our crap and not crap targeted at 12 year old Korean girls or 77 year old Uruguayan grandmas. It was more special, to us specifically. But I'm claiming that the amount of crap just for us is still there. It's just easy to be distracted by the billions of content producers that are easier to find. Note that I wasn't talking about slop, which does indeed risk a true Dead Internet. But people were pining for Geocities long before AI.
- Tanoc 2mo ago
  I would argue that a lot of our crap can't be produced anymore because of automated moderation and the DMCA. Remixes of old videogame songs, animutations, fan lore websites, these all get targeted constantly, and it's disenfranchising and disincentivizing people. They're scared whatever thing they made is going to get a takedown request, or the website they upload it to will not accept it because it's legally toxic. And before anything is said, no, not everyone uploaded to their own site even back in the late '90s. We had web portals like Newgrounds and Fark where they'd put stuff. It's when we abandoned web portals and moved to social media platforms that the suffocation began to happen, because the point wasn't to show other people in your community something you made, the point became grabbing as many generic views as possible. First that was for virality, then it was for AdSense money. What's funny is that back in the day if you mistyped a URL it'd go nowhere. Then for a while domain squatters took over, and they'd lead you to dead end traps slinging porn or pyramid schemes. Those dead end traps were on the fringes however, where nobody really ventured. Nowadays everywhere is designed like that, except instead of porn it's corporate ads, and the pyramid schemes are run by people making videos those corporate ads play over.
- docjay 2mo ago
  I didn’t take the OP to mean the raw amount of data was more catered to their interests, but rather that the personality of the internet was different. I said it sounded like you agreed because you listed the symptoms of that difference. The OP is talking about the “Web 1.5” era, and it seems like you have the requisite patina to remember it too. It really was an entirely different world. Server side technologies just became common, allowing for dynamic websites and user submitted content, which was the birth of forums and aggregators of user content. They tended to cater to special interests and had their own culture, inside jokes, and standards (if any). It was common to be a member of a half dozen or more forums or interest sites, and it was more rare to already know a friend that was part of them. Instead you interacted and became friends with strangers, rather than upload your contacts list and send out friend requests. There was Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Fark, Something Awful, Albino Blacksheep, eBaum’s World, Slashdot, Homestar Runner, YTMND, DeviantArt, Worth 1000, Maddox, Stile Project, Consumption Junction, Snopes, The Smoking Gun, Stick Death, The Perry Bible Fellowship, Penny Arcade, Threadless, Newgrounds, Zombo.com, Weebl's Stuff, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Badger Badger Badger, Fenslerfilm, Break.com, Stupid.com, Ogrish, Hot or Not, RateMyProfessors, Rate My Face, Stupidvideos, Questionable Content, How Stuff Works, Something Positive, IGN, Daily Kos, DeadJournal, LiveJournal, IRC, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Trillian… even of those that still “exist”, they don’t still exist. I’m not saying those sites were necessarily better, but the personality and environment that created them no longer exists. Websites were created just because of an inside joke on a forum somewhere, which then became cultural memes that were talked about at work and school. It was the era of “Have you seen this website?!” and “Joined: 2002” bragging, and that personality is gone.

JKCalhoun 2mo ago

Yeah, that was fine. It meant I got out riding my bike more often.