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- Oct 20, 2024
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As you know, I think about this a lot.
It's not because I'm obsessed (or, perhaps more accurately, not JUST because I'm obsessed) but because I had experienced three distinct "blackouts" in the last twenty years and change, and each one had me return to a completely different version of the net than the one that had existed before the plug was pulled.
When I first left the net as a teen (2006-8), Abandonware sites were already starting to die down, forums were desperately moving onto paid options like vBulletin just to "bribe" their members into staying by awkwardly pasting all the bells and whistles found elsewhere on the internet all-over message boards that largely didn't need them, and the age of the independent social media networks was reaching its end, with sites like Fotolog.com, PhotoBooth and MindViz bleeding traffic and money like crazy.
The second one (2012-14) had grinded whatever was left into fine dust, with "old guard" sites like RetroJunk.com and VampireFreaks rushing to change their iconic designs (axing many key features in the processes) to be more mobile-friendly and web 2.0-complying. It was pretty ugly, specially because few saw that sites that engaged in these sorts of things (and it was almost universally adopted) boasted about letting members "generate content" in exchange for largely worthless things like ranks and points that only existed within those same sites.
The last one (2017-24, with sporadic activity found throughout) showed me the empty husks and shells of whatever remained, with places like Yahoo! Answers, 12GraceStreet, DarkStarlings, Home Of The Underdogs, Abandonia, almost every Abandonware/ROM site out there, the dozens of niche SIMS communities I had frequented much earlier and several passion projects all either dead or abandoned, their incredibly charming frames-based designs and FrontPage Express DNA either shoved aside or gone under since.
I know that some of these "demises" were inevitable, but I honestly don't see why the vast majority of these couldn't exist today.
Hell, I'd want an advise site that's NOT Quora, or an alternative community to discuss hidden gems like Zombie Girl; or a massive, all-encompasing social media/forum place that's NOT owned by the same two or three out-of-touch billionaires. It's just weird to me that the very few that had tried to coexist with those cursed juggernauts had either failed to launch or couldn't survive.
So, let me ask you: what kind of "extinct" site you think should be able to exist today and just doesn't?
It's not because I'm obsessed (or, perhaps more accurately, not JUST because I'm obsessed) but because I had experienced three distinct "blackouts" in the last twenty years and change, and each one had me return to a completely different version of the net than the one that had existed before the plug was pulled.
When I first left the net as a teen (2006-8), Abandonware sites were already starting to die down, forums were desperately moving onto paid options like vBulletin just to "bribe" their members into staying by awkwardly pasting all the bells and whistles found elsewhere on the internet all-over message boards that largely didn't need them, and the age of the independent social media networks was reaching its end, with sites like Fotolog.com, PhotoBooth and MindViz bleeding traffic and money like crazy.
The second one (2012-14) had grinded whatever was left into fine dust, with "old guard" sites like RetroJunk.com and VampireFreaks rushing to change their iconic designs (axing many key features in the processes) to be more mobile-friendly and web 2.0-complying. It was pretty ugly, specially because few saw that sites that engaged in these sorts of things (and it was almost universally adopted) boasted about letting members "generate content" in exchange for largely worthless things like ranks and points that only existed within those same sites.
The last one (2017-24, with sporadic activity found throughout) showed me the empty husks and shells of whatever remained, with places like Yahoo! Answers, 12GraceStreet, DarkStarlings, Home Of The Underdogs, Abandonia, almost every Abandonware/ROM site out there, the dozens of niche SIMS communities I had frequented much earlier and several passion projects all either dead or abandoned, their incredibly charming frames-based designs and FrontPage Express DNA either shoved aside or gone under since.
I know that some of these "demises" were inevitable, but I honestly don't see why the vast majority of these couldn't exist today.
Hell, I'd want an advise site that's NOT Quora, or an alternative community to discuss hidden gems like Zombie Girl; or a massive, all-encompasing social media/forum place that's NOT owned by the same two or three out-of-touch billionaires. It's just weird to me that the very few that had tried to coexist with those cursed juggernauts had either failed to launch or couldn't survive.
So, let me ask you: what kind of "extinct" site you think should be able to exist today and just doesn't?
