What do you miss the most about "the internet of old"?

[Dyne]

I miss when anonymity was the norm, instead of everyone blasting all their personal day to day lives on social media.

I miss the "wild west" feel of the internet, before corporations streamlined and standardized the internet for maximum profit.

 

[demons-souls]

When everyone had an "online" and "offline" state. Like, you hoped on your PC, logged on ICQ/MSN/whatever, blasted some Linkin Park and that was your "online" state. Now, everyone's online 24/7. There are no rituals anymore, you know?

And, even though online and offline lives were substantially different things, people didn't make fake profiles specifically to spread hate and misinformation as much as they do now.

 

[Yousef]

I miss when anonymity was the norm, instead of everyone blasting all their personal day to day lives on social media.

I miss the "wild west" feel of the internet, before corporations streamlined and standardized the internet for maximum profit.

Funnily enough this is how I feel when YouTubers casually reveal their faces, real names and where they live for no real reason.

 

[balls_n_all93]

the slower pace. Having something tangible to look forward to after a long day at school or work, such as a moderate amount of myspace or forum notifications. Today, with discord and twitter, there's far too much to catch up on, it's exhausting. It's why Im glad there's still few active message boards. I don't get overwhelmed with chat. i'm able to to just click back a page or two and suddenly I'm caught up

 

[Clippy]

Not having to walk on eggshells because everything is a hate crime now, though I suppose it's more of a culture thing rather than just the Internet having changed. Still, a barrier of entry to being able to communicate with others made sure that the moronic masses of society simply went unheard instead of dictating the rules. In a way the old Internet was the first safe space if you think about it, which is hilarious in hindsight. You could do anything and say anything and either you happened to be with a crowd that understood your gripes with life or you moved on until you found that crowd. Good luck with that these days, unless you stayed clear of social media over the last 20 years like I have.

No social media was a blessing we didn't know we had. Never understood the appeal personally. I had enough interaction with people whenever I went outside. Computer time has always been me time and I certainly wasn't going to waste it dealing with Karens.

 

[ThirdEidolon]

I miss the internet not being regulated, at all.

You could say whatever you liked and not be banned from everywhere for not agreeing with the
group-think.

Post automatically merged: Dec 11, 2024

Not having to walk on eggshells because everything is a hate crime now, though I suppose it's more of a culture thing rather than just the Internet having changed. Still, a barrier of entry to being able to communicate with others made sure that the moronic masses of society simply went unheard instead of dictating the rules. In a way the old Internet was the first safe space if you think about it, which is hilarious in hindsight. You could do anything and say anything and either you happened to be with a crowd that understood your gripes with life or you moved on until you found that crowd. Good luck with that these days, unless you stayed clear of social media over the last 20 years like I have.

No social media was a blessing we didn't know we had. Never understood the appeal personally. I had enough interaction with people whenever I went outside. Computer time has always been me time and I certainly wasn't going to waste it dealing with Karens.

you like me I'm guessing, did not grow up on the internet, either.

Post automatically merged: Dec 11, 2024

I miss when anonymity was the norm, instead of everyone blasting all their personal day to day lives on social media.

I miss the "wild west" feel of the internet, before corporations streamlined and standardized the internet for maximum profit.

by design. makes profiling much easier now.

 

[Clippy]

you like me I'm guessing, did not grow up on the internet, either.

Yep. A good number of years of my life happened before modem Internet was really a thing in my neck of the woods, let alone broadband. So yeah, it wasn't until I was well into my teens that I had continuous and unrestricted access.

 

[ATenderLad]

You could say whatever you liked and not be banned from everywhere for not agreeing with the
group-think.

Everything being small communities run by people meant this wasn't really the case, forums were moderated, usenet and newsgroups and chat rooms all had cliques.

If anything it's actually the opposite, people just say anything they want with their face and name now, they don't even hide behind anonymity.

 

[ThirdEidolon]

Everything being small communities run by people meant this wasn't really the case, forums were moderated, usenet and newsgroups and chat rooms all had cliques.

If anything it's actually the opposite, people just say anything they want with their face and name now, they don't even hide behind anonymity.

The internet was better when people knew it was a bad idea to tell everyone their entire life story.

 

[Yousef]

you like me I'm guessing, did not grow up on the internet, either.

I always feel concerned for people who say they’ve been using the internet since they were 6 years old xD

 

[ThirdEidolon]

I always feel concerned for people who say they’ve been using the internet since they were 6 years old xD

You have every right to be concerned. You will be subjected to their half baked opinions later once they turn 14, because nobody is a parent anymore, apparently.

 

[Waffles]

You have every right to be concerned. You will be subjected to their half baked opinions later once they turn 14, because nobody is a parent anymore, apparently.

I don't let my kids anywhere near social media, with the heavily-walled world of YouTube Kids providing most of their online entertainment. It's just crazy letting actual children run around online.

 

[Clippy]

I don't let my kids anywhere near social media, with the heavily-walled world of YouTube Kids providing most of their online entertainment. It's just crazy letting actual children run around online.

Your kids will go on the Internet behind your back sooner or later thanks to the power of peer pressure. At the very least you can take solace in the fact that they won't stumble upon 2 Girls 1 Cup, Lemon Party or Rotten.com. Modern day Internet is way too sanitized for that.

 

[Waffles]

Your kids will go on the Internet behind your back sooner or later thanks to the power of peer pressure. At the very least you can take solace in the fact that they won't stumble upon 2 Girls 1 Cup, Lemon Party or Rotten.com. Modern day Internet is way too sanitized for that.

Yep. They won't even run into Leafy XD

 

[demons-souls]

Oh yeah, also when the concept of "ragebait" wasn't invented yet, at least not as a profitable business strategy

 

[spectresfrommercury]

lack of crybabies getting bigmad bout anything.

 

[ATenderLad]

Oh yeah, also when the concept of "ragebait" wasn't invented yet, at least not as a profitable business strategy

I mean, I don't think he made any coin off of it, but roundabout thirty years ago I watched a friend pose as a necrophiliac on a chat full of widowers, and ask where their wives were buried.

It's always been bastards, they've just got AdSense now.

 

[Waffles]

For some reason I really miss the old "Advise" sites, like Yahoo! Answers and 12GraceStreet, even if some of the content was unhelpful at best and downright disturbing at worst. It was just a sign of the times.

 

[marky]

Forums like this one

 

[JustLooking123]

Forums like this one

This one is unique across all times!

 

[Gorse]

For some reason I really miss the old "Advise" sites, like Yahoo! Answers and 12GraceStreet, even if some of the content was unhelpful at best and downright disturbing at worst. It was just a sign of the times.

The heyday of Quora was awesome – you'd get real industry professionals and recognizable celebrities answering questions there, and you could actually learn a lot about different fields. (I read up on some great insight in the TV industry.) These days it's completely paywalled, and all the users are bots.

 

[rannsaka]

This might sound a little weird, but I miss how the old internet and real life were two separate things. I liked checking social media on a computer and I liked how it was the norm.

Big time. I actually removed safari and all social media from my phone for that very reason.

 

[Goshikk]

I miss how much it sucked ass in every way.
Because that made it overall a better thing.

Nowadays, there's a financial incentive to everything and the quality is higher... but this is bad.

Not only is everything more bland and sanitized... this is slowly leading to the internet replacing aspects of real life, and people conflate the two more and more as time goes on.

I miss the old internet being just a silly hobby we had.

 

[TheWanderer]

I didn't really has access to the internet until like when I was 14 basically 10 years ago ,I freaking loved play Dem flash games seeing creative videos on YouTube but now it's either I grown up or YouTube content became more focused on generating money than expressing ideas

 

[Waffles]

Another thing I miss are personal sites... it was common for someone to create an entire page for posting pictures of their dog or something. And that was beautiful.