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There's precedent here in things like fast food vs. farm to table, mass produced goods vs arts and craft, digital photography vs film. Yet at least in my social

There's precedent here in things like fast food vs. farm to table, mass produced goods vs arts and craft, digital photography vs film. Yet at least in my social circle, I don't really hear anyone pining for an 'artisan internet'. Maybe it's because the internet is seen more as a tool than something to experience. Or maybe it's because we're still early in the 'mass produced internet' age. Or maybe network effects make transitioning away from the big networks to smaller ones difficult, unless you're only communicating with online-first groups. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future, because right now it certainly seems like things are trending in the opposite direction.

walrus01 1mo ago
> Yet at least in my social circle, I don't really hear anyone pining for an 'artisan internet'. In network engineering and telecom infrastructure circles, there's already a near universal opinion that big walled garden mass market social media (facebook, instagram, twitter, whatever) are permanently ruined and good only for shitposting. Or keeping up with posts from boomer generation / older gen-x relatives who don't know any better and won't use any other method to communicate. Anything serious has moved into things like private Signal groups where the participants all know each other, and similar. I also find it interesting to see people who started in-depth technical use of the internet well after 2010 "discovering" the concept of self hosting and running some of their own infrastructure, or even getting entirely fed up and removing anything google or microsoft (or similar subscription based) from their lives entirely. These are people who weren't there in the early days of the Internet and are now voluntarily choosing to say "no thanks" to lots of easy to use, subscriber-forever cloud based business models.
- wolvoleo 1mo ago
  Yes I noticed that chat apps have kinda taken over the role of social media. At least for the usecase of staying in touch with friends. I'm sure why too though, it's because all social media push these algorithmic feeds on us meaning we get bombarded with shit we didn't choose to follow. With chat apps we can once again communicate with just the people we want without all the crap being shoved in between.
  - navane 1mo ago
    Also chat is private. We went from public but anonymous to private and unanimous.
    - wolvoleo 1mo ago
      Well on facebook you could originally choose who you wanted to share things with. Not sure if that's still there because I haven't used it in years.
      - rcxdude 1mo ago
        In theory you could do this with facebook but the defaults matter and they defaulted to sharing very widely. With chat it's obviously and understandably bounded (at least unless a member of the group takes a positive action to forward/copy messages elsewhere, which is not generally very socially accepted to do without some level of permission or least a good reason).
artisinal 1mo ago
Perhaps we can make internet forums trendy again. Those are artisanal by nature. Only user generated content. Strict moderation.
- conception 1mo ago
  Discord took this place.
  - artisinal 1mo ago
    I have only used Discord briefly but I found it to be very closed off and to be more of a chatbox than a knowledge base.
    - rcxdude 1mo ago
      I don't recall most forums being particularly welcoming either or very good knowledge bases. Probably the main difference is the default for visibility of non-members, which does make a little bit of difference but I think if you want to maintain a knowledge base you should run a wiki, if you want a community then a forum or discord guild is the way to go, and discord is way easier for most people to set up.
    - esseph 1mo ago
      The user is not saying that there was an evolution from forums to Discord, they are saying the popular digital space people go to has changed.
  - lproven 1mo ago
    It absolutely did not and it is one of my least favourite things on the modern internet. It is a slow, ugly, overcomplicated mess designed by people who do not know how threading works and don't know how to do email properly. Yuck.
    - rcxdude 1mo ago
      I mean, I would describe most forums in the same way, and yet they persist as well. The main thing is not the details of the interface, but the fact that the systems allow creating your own community, and discord has made this significantly more accessible and hosts a huge number of smaller, closer-knit communities.
benrutter 1mo ago
> Yet at least in my social circle, I don't really hear anyone pining for an 'artisan internet'. It definitely is a thing at least, to pine for the "small web" [0]. I think as well, dissatisfaction with major social networks is pretty widespread, I don't know how often it comes.alongside a pining for something more "artisinal" though. [0] https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/ https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/
- TFNA 1mo ago
  People pining for the small web are a narrow elite in modern society. They are generally people who frequently use a desktop computer and enjoy reading (and writing) longform text. Most internet users today use a phone for accessing the internet, a platform which tends to discourage the writing of longform text and even the reading thereof. This is why image and video platforms are so popular now, as you can see from people's internet use in public places. And even a text-based site like Reddit has seen comment lengths decline drastically from substantial paragraphs to 180-character quips.
  - skydhash 1mo ago
    Based on what I’ve seen, most people use their phones (computer is mostly a work thing) as an entertainment device (like a tv) or to communicate with friends (chat and call). The other roles are to be a camera, a music player, a flashlight, and a game console. They only do computing for work and rarely interact with the web (as in hyperlinked documents) for personal reasons. There’s literally no reason to pine for a small web.
- DonHopkins 1mo ago
  I think of ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing Network at the MIT-AI Lab) as the first social network. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31807854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31807854 Artisnal means "the algorithm" and "chat" is written in PDP-10 assembly language and MACLISP, and the "editor" and "messenger" is written in TECO. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759887 Then there was Jordan Hubbard's infamous "rwall incident" of March 31, 1987. It was waaaay more than just reported to the local sysadmin, and almost got UCB kicked off the ARPANET. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759965 Keith Lynch documented why "History of the Net is Important": https://keithlynch.net/history.net.html https://keithlynch.net/history.net.html
coffeefirst 1mo ago
It already happened. For a lot of people, social media has been replaced entirely by group chat.

walrus01 1mo ago

> Yet at least in my social circle, I don't really hear anyone pining for an 'artisan internet'. In network engineering and telecom infrastructure circles, there's already a near universal opinion that big walled garden mass market social media (facebook, instagram, twitter, whatever) are permanently ruined and good only for shitposting. Or keeping up with posts from boomer generation / older gen-x relatives who don't know any better and won't use any other method to communicate. Anything serious has moved into things like private Signal groups where the participants all know each other, and similar. I also find it interesting to see people who started in-depth technical use of the internet well after 2010 "discovering" the concept of self hosting and running some of their own infrastructure, or even getting entirely fed up and removing anything google or microsoft (or similar subscription based) from their lives entirely. These are people who weren't there in the early days of the Internet and are now voluntarily choosing to say "no thanks" to lots of easy to use, subscriber-forever cloud based business models.

wolvoleo 1mo ago
Yes I noticed that chat apps have kinda taken over the role of social media. At least for the usecase of staying in touch with friends. I'm sure why too though, it's because all social media push these algorithmic feeds on us meaning we get bombarded with shit we didn't choose to follow. With chat apps we can once again communicate with just the people we want without all the crap being shoved in between.
- navane 1mo ago
  Also chat is private. We went from public but anonymous to private and unanimous.
  - wolvoleo 1mo ago
    Well on facebook you could originally choose who you wanted to share things with. Not sure if that's still there because I haven't used it in years.
    - rcxdude 1mo ago
      In theory you could do this with facebook but the defaults matter and they defaulted to sharing very widely. With chat it's obviously and understandably bounded (at least unless a member of the group takes a positive action to forward/copy messages elsewhere, which is not generally very socially accepted to do without some level of permission or least a good reason).

artisinal 1mo ago

Perhaps we can make internet forums trendy again. Those are artisanal by nature. Only user generated content. Strict moderation.

conception 1mo ago
Discord took this place.
- artisinal 1mo ago
  I have only used Discord briefly but I found it to be very closed off and to be more of a chatbox than a knowledge base.
  - rcxdude 1mo ago
    I don't recall most forums being particularly welcoming either or very good knowledge bases. Probably the main difference is the default for visibility of non-members, which does make a little bit of difference but I think if you want to maintain a knowledge base you should run a wiki, if you want a community then a forum or discord guild is the way to go, and discord is way easier for most people to set up.
  - esseph 1mo ago
    The user is not saying that there was an evolution from forums to Discord, they are saying the popular digital space people go to has changed.
- lproven 1mo ago
  It absolutely did not and it is one of my least favourite things on the modern internet. It is a slow, ugly, overcomplicated mess designed by people who do not know how threading works and don't know how to do email properly. Yuck.
  - rcxdude 1mo ago
    I mean, I would describe most forums in the same way, and yet they persist as well. The main thing is not the details of the interface, but the fact that the systems allow creating your own community, and discord has made this significantly more accessible and hosts a huge number of smaller, closer-knit communities.

benrutter 1mo ago

> Yet at least in my social circle, I don't really hear anyone pining for an 'artisan internet'. It definitely is a thing at least, to pine for the "small web" [0]. I think as well, dissatisfaction with major social networks is pretty widespread, I don't know how often it comes.alongside a pining for something more "artisinal" though. [0] https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/ https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

TFNA 1mo ago
People pining for the small web are a narrow elite in modern society. They are generally people who frequently use a desktop computer and enjoy reading (and writing) longform text. Most internet users today use a phone for accessing the internet, a platform which tends to discourage the writing of longform text and even the reading thereof. This is why image and video platforms are so popular now, as you can see from people's internet use in public places. And even a text-based site like Reddit has seen comment lengths decline drastically from substantial paragraphs to 180-character quips.
- skydhash 1mo ago
  Based on what I’ve seen, most people use their phones (computer is mostly a work thing) as an entertainment device (like a tv) or to communicate with friends (chat and call). The other roles are to be a camera, a music player, a flashlight, and a game console. They only do computing for work and rarely interact with the web (as in hyperlinked documents) for personal reasons. There’s literally no reason to pine for a small web.
DonHopkins 1mo ago
I think of ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing Network at the MIT-AI Lab) as the first social network. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31807854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31807854 Artisnal means "the algorithm" and "chat" is written in PDP-10 assembly language and MACLISP, and the "editor" and "messenger" is written in TECO. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759887 Then there was Jordan Hubbard's infamous "rwall incident" of March 31, 1987. It was waaaay more than just reported to the local sysadmin, and almost got UCB kicked off the ARPANET. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759965 Keith Lynch documented why "History of the Net is Important": https://keithlynch.net/history.net.html https://keithlynch.net/history.net.html

coffeefirst 1mo ago

It already happened. For a lot of people, social media has been replaced entirely by group chat.