Is this forum nostalgic over everything or is the modern world really that bad?

[Sylvian]

For me, it's 50/50. I'm older now so I look back on how the web used to be with rose colored glasses. But also, the modern web really does suck. You have very little control over self expression, everything is owned and operated by a few international conglomerates, censorship is everywhere, everyone hates eachother, etc. The trend seems to be to lobotomize tech and reduce the awesome computing power we now have to 30 second videos of nonsense.

I think the question isn't whether the modern web sucks, but whether the old web was actually any good (or if I'm just being nostalgic)

[JINSBEK]

I think the question isn't whether the modern web sucks, but whether the old web was actually any good (or if I'm just being nostalgic)

Oh my god I nearly died when he mentioned browsing on Gopher. What a blast to the past that was. That was well before my time (by the late 1990s gopher:// lost all relevancy to http://), but it still was enough to send me back into some dark computer room lit only by the bluish glow of a CRT monitor. Amazing video. But on to your point... Did a lot of people really complain about the state of the Internet back in the 1990s and early 2000s? I know people made jokes about Eternal September, but I can't tell how seriously bothered people were by this, or if it was largely just an annoyance and then tongue-in-cheek. Did people just take the negatives of the Internet for granted, e.g. "That's what anonymity does to people", and, "This is what happens when you let unruly teenagers loose without consequences"? People were ripe medlars in that era, but perhaps that's not so different now: except that now, they're really everywhere on "social media" (Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and it's almost impossible to avoid without some highly intentional browsing on those platforms. I feel like back then, it was easier to escape that kind of jerkishness by simply not going onto the offending website, and blocking the person if you do maintain an account on the community. But with platforms like X and Facebook, it feels like you have to block swathes of people, instead of just one or two every now and then.

I think it's an interesting question of what you're exposed to and where you go, and how deliberate your Internet usage. Most people seem to have horrible experiences with YouTube now, especially the much-vaunted YouTube Creator milieu, but. Back in my day, we didn't have YouTube Creators. It was really just everyone posting whatever short videos they had made for fun and that was it. Tell me 18 years ago that people would be making a living off of YouTube and I'd go, "What, the Numa Numa guy?" I think the problem is that a lot of people are reliant on the Internet in one way or another for their revenue streams now, and now that ecosystem is very hard to actually make a sustainable living off of. I don't watch a hundred TV channels; I could subscribe to hundreds of YouTube channels, but even if I wanted to, how many of those videos do you think I could actually watch? I do feel incredibly... moderately severely displeased with major online platforms as they are now, but also, I have enough online and offline alternatives that frankly, that sort of thing doesn't bother me anymore. I'm having too much fun on the Internet (or outside, touching grass--when it's not snowing) to really care about the BS on Reddit or whatever.

Does this mean I have a more parochial view of the modern world? Well, I want to remind people that "back in my day, we had Jerry Springer." (For those who don't know, I've linked to the Wikipedia article on trash TV.) And, people read books. Absolutely there has been a qualitative change given how many people are absorbing the worst from these online platform apps, and a frighteningly rapid rate, and I see what happens when people raise their children on phones and tablets instead of actually parenting them, but at the same time, I don't know if it's the Internet that's gotten bad or if people have just gotten lazy and complacent[. I can't really blame a piece of technology in isolation. Convenience, convenience, convenience is what our current systems prioritise, and that's going to continue until something breaks. And we're starting to see in pockets, people reaching that pivotal point and just doing something else with their lives. I don't think it's just nostalgia. People just... want to not be stressed, zoned out, and miserable for so many waking hours anymore.

Also. This has been very interesting, looking back at this thread. (Thank you, Vague Similar Topics!) A focus on crafting 3D worlds! I didn't know that was the original intent of MelonLand, and it's fascinating to see how all that has grown...