What features of the Internet do you now favor over newspapers and old systems?
I.e, is there anything where the Internet won you for good?
I never use my TV-Listing booklet any more, nor the daily TV page.
They were always wrong last season, with struggling shows being rearranged daily, that I just put the TV listing on my Yahoo home page, and always see it when I log in after work.
I never write thank you notes any more. Even my retired aunt gets email, so I use free e-postcards.
I never read Straight Dope in print form any more. I used to just read it at the free stand in the grocery store lobby, then return the paper to the stand (the rest of the paper is junk). Now my browser keeps the current copy on it’s “subscription list”, pre-loaded for off-line viewing.
I never pay utility bills any more. They are automatic from my e-bank. Still have to do rent and a couple others, though, but any day now!
I have yet to order anything from the web, though. If I need something I want it now, and web shopping is sooo sloow.
I just love that I can constantly feed my brain. I’ll have two IE windows open, an IRC window open, and have a couple of people talking to me on AIM and ICQ and I’m in HEAVEN. While I’m waiting for a page to load, I’m reading another one. If no one’s talking on AIM or ICQ, there’s something happening in chat. It’s exactly the speed at which my brain works. At least, that’s how it sort of feels from this end.
I’m being entirely inaccurate, but I can’t figure out how to say what I mean.
I’m with Audrey, except that I’ve never used phones (I have a weird phone-phobia…). Now that I’ve got 'Net access, I actually communicate with people. Otherwise, I’d just sit at home, doing nothing (no, I am NOT exaggerating… remember, I’m the SDMB’s Loser Poster-Child).
Oh, and the 'Net makes Porn acquisition a lot easier.
I use the Yahoo! Yellow pages and never the real ones anymore. Also the pink business listings.
Just this week I needed to find both a branch of my bank and where to eat in a town away from mine (I temp).
So at work I typed in my company address and they gave me lists sorted by walking distance. If I clicked on a line, I got a map, and if I had clicked again I would have got driving directions street-by-street.
When I last got ne yellow pages I realized I hadn’t used the prior book at all. It was still wrapped in a bottom drawer of the phone table.
Email: my parents hear from me a lot more now that we’ve all got email.
News: no more newspaper subscriptions, instead I go to CNN for national/international and local papers’ web sites.
One morning I bought tickets to an IMAX show, bought tickets to Phantom of the Opera, and transferred money from savings to checking to cover the purchase, without leaving my desk. OK, the money transfer was done over the phone (automated system), but I could have gone online to do it.
The only time I don’t buy CDs online is when I can’t wait the couple days for it to be shipped to me. Not books, though - those I need to buy in person so I can start reading the instant I get home from the store.
The weather. I commute a lot by bicycle and do a lot of recreational riding as well, so the first thing I go to in the morning is the page of weather links on our bicycle club’s web site. Then I can figure out what to wear and what I might need later.
I don’t mean to hijack this thread, but how in the &$^^* do you do that? I’ve been using the HP Instant-Delivery software to pull comics and such off the web, but it chews through paper and printer cartridges at an alarming rate.
I’ve tinkered with the “off line” features in IE 5.5, but the stupid thing seems to want to connect to the net no matter what I do. (I’ve set it to auto-dial.)
I use the internet for everything that I can. I shop, get news, comics, entertainment, music, watch movie previews, bank, pay bills, trade stocks - I even set up service appointments for my car using the internet. The main thing that I like is its convenience. I can order my groceries at midnight and have them brought to my house half an hour after I get off work the next day. I have a cable modem, so I don’t even have to wait on a modem to dial or pages to load, so I can get trivial information in as long as it takes me to type words into a search engine.
Gads, that sounds like it could have been taken out of a brochure for an ISP. Sorry about that, but I loooooove the internet.
Newspaper specific: The comics. The Washington Post has a fine variety of comics, but between their websites and two other sites, I can read twenty to thirty good comics a day without once running the risk of exposure to Cathy or The Family Circus.
This is gonna sound pretty simple, but I really appreciate that after finding out newspaper-type stuff online, I don’t have a massive stack of NEWSPAPER when I’m done. I really appreciate not having the stuff pile up until I can get it recycled or whatever. I have to confess though, I do sometimes have to hunt for something to get the fireplace going in the winter…thank goodness for junkmail!
Online aside from news, I also look up the movie listings and reviews (I can read Ebert even though no local papers carry him.) Book reviews I get from Amazon (or here, heh heh.) Pretty much any columnist/comic you’d like to read is online. One of the things I like best about not having the paper anymore is not having to read the ASININE letters to the editor. Sheesh.
