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If you've ever found yourself missing the "good old days" of the #web, what is it that you miss? (Interpret "it" broadly: specific websites? types of activities? feelings? etc.) And approximately when were those good old days?
No wrong answers — I'm working on an article and wanted to get some outside thoughts.
@molly0xfff Much broader and more detailed sharing of content in blogs, photos (notably Flickr), et al. No worries about LLMs consuming anything not marked All Rights Reserved. (Remember Creative Commons?)
@suldrew @molly0xfff no worries about scrapers for LLMs and image generators consuming anything that IS marked All Rights Reserved
@suldrew @molly0xfff yeah they consume that too because even looking at licenses is "too hard" and "slows innovation".
@svgeesus @molly0xfff indeed they do
@molly0xfff I've never experienced "good old internet". But from what I've seen on this tiny part of the internet, I'd say: "good old" = "small, young and full of techie idealistic folks".
@csdummi @molly0xfff as someone who was a young idealistic techie in the early internet I think you nailed it. Those traits persist today, just in different places than the archaic platforms of the 90s (geocities, nntp, phpbb, listserv, etc). I think algorithmic platforms help and hurt. I don’t think kids these days are missing out on anything any more than I missed out on tech before my time like 8 tracks and AM radio. The tech has changed but the fundamental human experiences remain.
@csdummi @molly0xfff I wasn't young in my good old days (1992-1998), I was 32-38. But I had the other two.
@molly0xfff I miss the era of personal web sites started out of genuine admiration for something, rather than out of a desire to farm a few advertising pennies
@JasonW @molly0xfff definitely this too. Geocities/MySpace sites dedicated to some fandom or another with no concept of monetization.
@dave @JasonW @molly0xfff and no concept of design!
@tob @JasonW @molly0xfff hey now, no need to dunk on web design back then. Nobody was trying to look "professional", we were all just playing and having fun.
@dave @JasonW @molly0xfff That was the charm! Man, a lot of fun was had in those days hunting for the craziest pages.
@dave @tob @JasonW @molly0xfff At least we didn't do light grey writing on white background
@JasonW @molly0xfff This. You wanted to identify a song? Type some of the lyrics into a search engine and hope that somebody transcribed the same lyrics onto their fansite. You needed to know a fact? Better hope some guru had taken the time to share it, or it'd be time for a trip to the library
Not having information instantly easy to find meant that you really treasured your online discoveries. You'd bookmark the best sites on whatever topics you cared about and feel no awkwardness about emailing a fellow netizen (or signing their guestbook to tell them) about a resource they might like. And then you'd check back, manually, from time to time to see what was new.
The young Web was still magical and powerful, but the effort to payoff ratio was harder, and that made you appreciate your own and other people's efforts more.
@JasonW @molly0xfff the constant "how can I monetize this?" of the modern web is exhausting.
The constant "how can I monetize this" problem isn't just limited to the web itself. It has damaged hobbies & modern life in general.
It is very different making a thing for me, for the fun of it, than something that must be marketable. It's also fine to do things and not be good at it.
@tschundler
I fully agree.
@JasonW @molly0xfff Don't forget to sign the guest book!
@molly0xfff I like the web now, but "the good old days" are basically everything before Facebook. Especially the 90s where it felt like a playground with unlimited possibilities and everybody was having fun.
(I know not everyone was having fun, it just felt like that).
@tob @molly0xfff So many things that people have been saying… And when Google’s Don’t Be Evil was both policy and credible. Gmail and Google Maps were these revelations and joys to use. Definitely pre-FB, and before the surveillance became a lucrative business model. The 90s, but also the post-crash mid-00s.
@molly0xfff I used to have a list of websites I'd visit every day, various blogs, webcomics, and other similar sites. Those all died, and were replaced by the big social networks. This makes it a lot harder to see the stuff I want to see. It's also depressing because in order to see the same type of content I have to see a bunch of ads, and none of that ad money is going to the artists / creators that I care about.
@fancysandwiches @molly0xfff yeah - this, all of this (and those cool websites were all relatively tiny, downloaded fast even on the slow technologies of the day, and tended to link to each other so you could find more cool things)
@fancysandwiches @molly0xfff i'll have to fight you one the webcomic thing haha we're still here with our own websites! It's just that very few people are comfortable enough to visit :c
@batichi @molly0xfff Yes, some webcomics are around and using their own websites and I love that! But there are a bunch I used to follow religiously that are either entirely gone, or no longer have their own dedicated website. I'm just really miffed to see some creators sharing their content on various platforms where they have thousands of followers, but get no money from doing that. You can at least put ads on your own site and get some money out of the deal.
@fancysandwiches @molly0xfff unfortunately for creators those platforms pay more (even though the payment is ridiculously low and you have to be really lucky) than running google ads. Many of us have some sort of tipping feature to jump the middle man all together but it's hard to get people to donate.
I've been doing webcomics myself for years and only broke close to even on events like Kickstarters when i could finally print a book.
@batichi @molly0xfff I'm not really talking about platforms that actually pay creators (though, as you stated those aren't perfect). I'm complaining about some folks posting exclusively to places like Instagram or Twitter. I can't really view any content on Instagram because I don't have an account and they make it very difficult to see much of anything without one. Even if I did have an account I'd have to see a ton of ads, but the creators aren't getting paid by Instagram.
@fancysandwiches @molly0xfff ah yeah i see what you mean. Tbh i'm not sure why folks are there either unless they're already big.
@molly0xfff Information density. Not just less padding on content, but the simplicity of the content. Pages that were mostly lightly-styled html with some images.
@geoffeg @molly0xfff This. I miss text. Too many superfluous images now
i miss the days when folks weren't totally consumed with revenue generated (or viewership as a metric of real/potential revenue).
you found folks talking about odd hobbies, early blogs, how-tos that weren't a youtube video.
it was much more like a collection of amateur newsletters we all shared.
@molly0xfff I liked "right click -> view source"... then open up notepad and try it myself...