Is it just me or have internet habits changed drastically? I blame Facebook, and YouTube, like YouTube after Google bought it, back in the day it seemed to have a lot more smaller cliques, it was more personable. Facebook has all but killed message boards like this one here. (not here but other places) It seems people used to send a lot more PM’s and chat on instant messenger. You actually had friends online. Now, Facebook has done away with all that because it is so much faster and more seamless. But I miss the old days!!!
Also, I barely even go on YouTube unless it is to watch music or see something someone else linked me too. Maybe for a movie review, that is about all. Completely different from me blaming Facebook, the novelty of the internet has worn off. I spend 90% of my time on the internet split between here and the IMDb boards (film general, religion, and whatever TV shows or movie I just watched). When and how did the internet become “boring?”
Or, am I in the minority on my views that the internet has changed?
The internet was originally about communication - I’m thinking mostly Usenet, global email and the first generation of websites. Plus the file exchange capabilities.
Now it’s overwhelmingly about media and marketing, with communication reduced to a hook and a promotional channel.
For the most part, I prefer the newer Internet. There are some annoyances, like what Amateur Barbarian mentioned, but it’s been positive for me, especially from a business standpoint.
I wouldn’t disagree, and I have benefited enormously from every iteration of the internet since it hobbled onto the stage. It’s a net boon to the world, no question.
I don’t have anything against the general “Web 2.0” world except that it displaced real communication - discourse on the level of SDMB and above - to a forgotten niche. Too many users can’t deal with anything that’s not HD video and biff-bam-boom graphics (accessed on a tiny mobile device with no real keyboard) even though they might have something to say with these old-fashioned hieroglyphics.
I miss the ‘old’ internet too.
I use to copy and paste sooo much information I gleaned. I compiled various sources and opinions, then clarified them with edit marks and comments.
Now everything is videos.
And the majority of ‘information’ on the web now can’t be trusted. A pet-peeve of mine is articles or information that doesn’t have a date.
Any company that uses Facebook as ‘their Co. website’ gets my immediate disdain.
I blame Facebook and smartphones. Facebook’s ‘like’ is sooo gradeschool and overly-simple-minded. And no one wants to write anything of any merit on a tap keyboard.
I remember when I first started, just barely pre-graphical web browsers, on telnet, gopher, and that sort of thing (and BBSes.) When Mosaic first came out, I was annoyed by it, felt like it was “dumbing down” the Internet, for similar reasons as above. But I quickly changed my mind after seeing it in action.
I personally think communication is much more facilitated with this easier-to-use multimedia Internet. Personally, I find myself more in touch with people, and I find information much easier to find and verify. My only annoyance is the over saturation of ads on commercial websites but, well, it’s a small price to pay.
For me it was early 90s. I remember loving the telnet CitadelBBS at U of Iowa (I’m always forgetting its name.) Wasted about as much time there yearly as I do here.
i loved them too. i was in middle school in the early/mid 80’s. me and my friends went on BBS and posted about Doctor Who and Dungeons and Dragons… LOL
Either that or everything is stupid clickbait, slide shows or dumbed down into lists. Apparently no one can read a couple paragraphs of text these days.
Every now and then I miss the “Wild West” internet of 1999. Geocities and crazy fansites and webrings for hobbies with webpages full of animated gifs and sparkling text. Pages filled with cat photos. Pages for obscure and strange magicks and roleplaying groups. Fanfiction spread out everywhere. You could find a lot of stuff randomly on search engines (and they all had different results) that could easily lead you down a rabbit hole. Because the search algorithms weren’t very good yet you were just as likely to get Aunt Marge’s Apple Pie Heaven as anywhere else. The small sites were on page 1. And eventually at age 12 you end up seeing porn for the first time without even meaning to (pokeman. com…or just cat searches). And then the popups. The popups everywhere.
But then I think about how great it is to have a worldwide marketplace and reliable searches. The internet has been monetized…and I rather like it this way, too. Because now I can get anything I want. I could get a picture of Napoleon printed on a body pillow. What a time to be alive!
Back then if you wanted to be on the internet for people to find, you had to get yourself free hosting and learn the basics of HTML (or with really bad visual editors). Everyone had a personal webpage because there were no social networks yet. I think that’s really what made it so wild. People really assumed they had anonymity and they didn’t hold back much in what they put on their personal webpages. Nowadays most people put their personal stuff in their Facebook account, where it’s all regularly structured and you don’t want Uncle Tim seeing that embarrasing photo from last year’s Halloween.
What I love are websites that fell for the 25+ year domain name and hosting trap so they’re still alive today, abandoned for over a decade. They’re like little time capsules.