For me anyway, the modern web feels like the realization of those early internet pioneering ideas. I run my own personal site, with a nice open source google photos replacement, hosting my own VDI, streaming services, you name it. It’s all running on a pile of discarded speak and spell’s in my basement (a joke but only barely, this junk will run on anything that can host a container). It’s all possible thanks to the open source shoulders of giants I’m standing on and in spite of my lack of coding experience (I’m dev/ops). The fact that I run more infrastructure than my first few jobs combined, as one hobbyist, kinda blows my formerly teenage brain.
It’s still out there, just so long as you are willing to DIY. I am holding great hope for the fediverse, although I’ve been getting used to disappointment lately.
I imagine you’re probably talking more about content, but you’ve uncovered a pet peeve of mine having more to do with the structure of web pages.
The original vision of html was to have this beautiful format that flows text and graphics elegantly over whatever space you give it. I remember thinking this is great! One day we will have pocket-sized displays and the web is already future-proofed to work seamlessly in that world.
Then fast-forward to smart phones. By now, web pages were so rigidly formatted that they had to design special mobile versions of every site.
Marketing ruins everything.
actually made my own site https://sandwich.sh/ you can do quite a lot with just html, I just don’t know what. the archive section is html generated with a bash script. sending it here because I think it’s cool
well, at its heart, the ‘www’ was supposed to be a bunch of documents linked to each other contextually… in a similar vein Wikipedia handles things
you ever try and use the web without images? genX remembers.
It’s almost as if something gets infinitely worse once the masses adopt it
Normies ruined the internet
i remember growing up I’d literally get a buzz off a good thread or from reeling off a good post. it felt so incredible being able to communicate with people across the world and be taken seriously, evaluated on the merits of my words rather than dismissed due to age or race or anything. and most of all, it felt like this special secret between you and other dorks. now everyone has phones in their pocket. going on twitter is like going to mcdonals.
I dismiss this comment because your age and race are ambiguous and everything else! /S
Seriously though I kind of feel like Lemmy has at least some of that nostalgic feeling. Surfing through instances, finding that one semi-active obscure interest community you fit right in with. It’s definitely not the same but nothing stays the same.
The worst comment section of all belongs to Instagram. Absolute cesspool full of the most moronic people i’ve ever witnessed. Smart phones killed the internet. We need something that isn’t THE internet, and is only accessible if you have the patience and knowledge to connect to it.
We need something that isn’t THE internet, and is only accessible if you have the patience and knowledge to connect to it.
That kinda does exist it’s just that you and I lack either the knowledge or patience to connect to it.
No, we need something that is just accessible enough that I am still included, but all those other normies aren’t! \s
If that’s what you want, it does exist. It is called Usenet and it predates the world wide web. There are still active discussion communities, though most of its bandwidth is used for file-sharing nowadays.
