# Was the internet better 30 years ago? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 11, 2025, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260 "2025-05-11T18:22:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/61 "2025-05-12T19:50:31Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Even if you accept your premise, which is wrong, Twitter has gotten significantly, unrecognizably worse in the past year. We’re going to have to agree to disagree about my premise (that Twitter was always a disaster in the making) but agreed that it has been getting dramatically worse since it’s acquisition by Elon Musk and transformation in to “X”, and specifically geared toward promoting autocracy, racism, and even flat-out fascism. I will note that from the first time I was introduced to Twitter (sometime around 2010 or 2011) I note that the then-140 character format and ‘retweeting’ outrageous or humorous messages promoted bad behavior and the proliferation of outrage; it basically took everything that was already going wrong with Facebook and packaged it in a way that was even more ‘compelling’ (read: psychosocially addictive) form that was intended from the ground up as a mobile application that would notify people by default. I know that a lot of people promote its use in communications and especially journalism, and many news outlets took to just literally repeating Twitter posts (or in the case of CNN, posting an image of a screen capture followed by reiterating the text, apparently to inflate the size of the article), but I’ll also note that this resulted in people essentially taking ‘factoids’ posted in tweets to be true (or at least ‘true-ish’) without bothering to do even basic fact-checking because the tweets and retweets came so fast that it wasn’t possible to squash obvious nonsense, and assuming someone to be an ‘expert’ in a particular field just because they promoted themselves as so on the platform. As bad as Facebook and now ‘Meta’ is about promoting conspiranoia and falsehoods, Twitter does so in such an immediate and addictive way that even people trained in critical thinking fall prey to the flood of gut reaction and misinformation. The sad thing is that there are valid use cases for an application like this; if Twitter were just being used to communicate targeted information to interested users and emergency alerts without a bunch of cruft of a platform like Facebook it would be very useful. But of course that wouldn’t get the clicks that earn ad revenue, and ‘the algorithm’ for Twitter has to promote the most outrageous memes and claims to maximize for yield rather than any kind of quality. Which is why I have never had this app on any of my devices and am very circumspect over what posts I even look at when they are forwarded by others. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/62 "2025-05-12T21:59:12Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Look at protocols like SMTP. Sure, anyone can leave me emails, and claim they’re anyone they want to be! Early to mid 90’s at work we had email on a Xenix system. I sent an email to a co-worker from “[Satan@Hell.com](mailto:Satan@Hell.com)”. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/63 "2025-05-12T22:12:50Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > For you and people like you. For poor African farmers, it simply _didn’t exist at all for them then_, and now it’s a _complete_ game shifter. > > or tl;dr: “First World Problems.” It’s the same internet. It seems like a pretty hollow thing to invite everyone into the library, at the same time as setting it on fire. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/64 "2025-05-12T23:02:10Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > I sent an email to a co-worker from “[Satan@Hell.com](mailto:Satan@Hell.com)”. We coordinated Christmas gift exchanges with emails sent from [Santa@North.Pole](mailto:Santa@North.Pole). ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/65 "2025-05-12T23:30:08Z")
Oddly there is a [Northpole.com](http://Northpole.com) but no [Hell.com](http://Hell.com). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/66 "2025-05-13T04:51:23Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > It’s the same internet. That’s _my_ point. That it’s no longer just the playground of a privileged few with privileged few concerns. > [@Mangetout](#): > > It seems like a pretty hollow thing to invite everyone into the library, at the same time as setting it on fire. The library isn’t on fire. The pile of _Cosmo_ and _People_ magazines in one corner has gotten mouldy, and the noise levels have risen, that’s all. People who _need to_ can still find all the useful books they need, completely unburnt. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/67 "2025-05-13T07:42:36Z")
Do you have some specific examples in mind? This isn’t so much a ‘cite please’ as a request to perhaps be disabused of the ignorance of privilege, as well as maybe gaining a little bit of hope that the internet hasn’t been ruined for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/68 "2025-05-13T09:16:49Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Do you have some specific examples in mind? Of how people in the developing world use smartphones? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/69 "2025-05-13T09:25:13Z")
If that’s what you’re talking about, yes - are they accessing different apps and services that are not (yet) enshittified? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/70 "2025-05-13T09:34:56Z")
Dedicated apps like [M-Pesa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa) for finance, [WorldReader’s BookSmart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldreader) for education, [Esoko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoko) for agriculture, [various app](https://borgenproject.org/10-apps-that-aid-healthcare-in-developing-countries/)s for healthcare. I don’t think any of those are enshittified. They can have great success rates - for instance, M-Pesa has more than tripled the rate of financial inclusion for Kenyans. Just locally in South Africa, it has even had [a measurable positive political impact.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387823000287).. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/71 "2025-05-13T09:37:56Z")
Thanks - yeah, those things are, as you say completely off my radar. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/72 "2025-05-13T11:33:10Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > > [@Mangetout](#): > > > > Perhaps it was _too_ innocent for its own good > > The innocence was designed in. Look at protocols like SMTP. Sure, anyone can leave me emails, and claim they’re anyone they want to be! The original thought was that any computer that was on the internet must be trustworthy. Quite right. Email is a good example of the “innocence” of the early internet, or more precisely, the assumption of trustworthiness. The security protocols we use today, like SSL, TLS, and OAuth 2.0 are all add-ons. Because of course the modern internet evolved from what was originally a government and academic network. It’s useful to recall how primitive the early internet was. For many years even after the advent of the World Wide Web, the kinds of search engines we take for granted simply did not exist, and Alta Vista was groundbreaking when it first appeared. In those days you could buy directories listing most of the major websites and their URLs. They were kind of the Yellow Pages of the internet. > [@Spoons](#): > > but it was pretty much dial-up 14,400 kbps (blazing speed!) Those were the newfangled modems that directly connected to the phone line. Remember acoustic couplers, where you placed the telephone handset into a couple of little rubber cups and the modem beeped and howled, sending and receiving at what was often just 300 bps, and sometimes just 110 bps! 110 bps was the speed of the ubiquitous ASR-33 and KSR-33 Teletypes, with a print speed of 10 characters per second. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/73 "2025-05-13T13:16:44Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > That’s when it cost 10 cents per minute for long distance (AFTER 10pm). That works out to be $4320/month for 24/7 connectivity. I graduated from college in the early ‘90s. My university maintained my account access and email address for another year or so after graduation. But since I had moved across the country, I maintained access by calling the university server up long-distance so that I could continue to read Usenet newsgroups. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/74 "2025-05-13T14:20:10Z")
When I got out of college c.1996, I spent a month or so dialing into the state university system. It was in the same area code but the phone bill soon demonstrated that it was not “local”. Ouch. Fortunately, I was able to soon find a local dial-up provider where it was something like 5¢ a call for unlimited time due to proximity. Speaking of costs, I remember the warning our Usenet client would give before posting: > This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing. Yes, my opinions on the latest Magic: the Gathering set ARE worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, thank you very much! ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/75 "2025-05-14T16:52:05Z")
I got my online fix in the heady days of Bulletin Board Systems. Years I would play multiplayer online text games likes Legend of the Red Dragon. Then America Online came out and everyone was google-eyed at all the new capabilities like checking the weather and writing your grandmother and I was not impressed. Until I had to do homework as a tween on some innocent topic when I fell down the rabbit hole without guard rails and end up looking at real filmed Jihadist decapitations by accident. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/76 "2025-05-14T20:54:56Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Legend of the Red Dragon Hey, I remember that! Seth was my childhood hero… You can still play it online: [https://playlord.org](https://playlord.org) [![](https://fightingignorance.org/863f7f5c-6c2d-4d35-85d0-6537a94ffecd-image.png) ](https://fightingignorance.org/863f7f5c-6c2d-4d35-85d0-6537a94ffecd-image.png) > [@Sitnam](#): > > real filmed Jihadist decapitations by accident. Ah yes, the path from (any teenage hangout) to [rotten.com](http://rotten.com) was quite short in those days… I also had more than one instance of trying to download some popular song from Napster, only to end up with dog-on-person bestiality porn =/ We didn’t so much have to deal with fake news in those days as much as real horrors… ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/77 "2025-05-14T21:50:19Z")
Its far easier to find information now than it was in the 90s. That alone makes it better, since thats the main purpose of the internet. I don’t like how addictive it became, and how it replaced real life. The internet used to be a small part of life, not our main third space. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/78 "2025-05-14T22:12:22Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > The internet used to be a small part of life, not our main third space. Yeah, great point. It became a vicious cycle, even… as more and more people started to use it for community, more and more communities became internet-first and then internet-only… =/ ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/79 "2025-05-15T00:30:08Z")
Yes, yes it _was_. I spent some time far upthread reading a few posts nostalgically, and later found a few rabbit holes to dive into ([‘enshittification’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) being one of those definitions I’d _felt_ but hadn’t seen it in the lexicon). My opinion, in just a few hours’ time has concreted itself into a “Was it better _then_?” **F%#^ yes!!** > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Its far easier to find information now than it was in the 90s. That alone makes it better, since thats the main purpose of the internet. I disagree. Because a lot of the current Internet has been ‘weaponized’ by commercial/bad actors, just because it’s easy to find intormation does not mean it’s accurate at face value. In my rabbit-holing, I learned about the [Dead Internet Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory). Lemme be perfectly clear: I am _ **not** _ a conspiracy theorist. I cannot ‘unsee’ some trends or patterns that parallel the conspiracy theory though. I think the vast majority of ‘weaponized’ material (Facebook feeds, Amazon ‘recommendations’, just about anything political, some “news” articles, etc. etc.) comes straight outta AI or bots. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I don’t like how addictive it became, and how it replaced real life. The internet used to be a small part of life, not our main third space Seconded. I can’t tell you how much time I’d spent on message boards as a young guy, or even during COVID (which, I guess the ‘electronic 3rd space kinda’ worked out, didn’t it?) Tripler – Not a bot. Not artificial. Not intelligent. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260/80 "2025-05-15T01:36:27Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > I disagree. Because a lot of the current Internet has been ‘weaponized’ by commercial/bad actors, just because it’s easy to find intormation does not mean it’s accurate at face value. In my rabbit-holing, I learned about the [Dead Internet Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory). Lemme be perfectly clear: I am _ **not** _ a conspiracy theorist. I cannot ‘unsee’ some trends or patterns that parallel the conspiracy theory though. I think the vast majority of ‘weaponized’ material (Facebook feeds, Amazon ‘recommendations’, just about anything political, some “news” articles, etc. etc.) comes straight outta AI or bots. Around 2/3 of users on twitter are bots, so the theory isn’t really a conspiracy anymore. [https://internet2-0.com/bots-on-x-com/](https://internet2-0.com/bots-on-x-com/) > 5th Column is an AI that detects bots on social media. After analyzing **1.269M** accounts on [X.com](http://X.com) (formerly known as Twitter), 5th Column AI predicts that approximately **64%** of the accounts currently analyzed are potentially bots as seen in Graph 1. Its going to get even worse with AI, when you consider that many social media is now used to manipulate the opinions of people to make them behave or think the way that the creators of the bots want them to think and act. But it depends on the site. On social media, more and more of them are going to be bots designed to manipulate people. But on wikipedia, there are no real bots from what I can see. However there are efforts to use wikipedia as a propaganda outlet and it has to be edited to prevent that. I guess anywhere where people can be pressured to support an agenda, buy a product, vote a certain way, think a certain way, etc you’ll see bots. Which sadly is a lot of the internet [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-internet-better-30-years-ago/1018260.md?page=5)