If you had a time machine that could set the internet back to what it was like in a certain era, when would that be?
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For me personally it was from 2010-2016. It might have just been that I was younger and didn’t care as much what was going on in the world but I still felt like the world was improving. Technology felt like it was making the world better without being overly bombarded with algorithms and ads. A lot of early streaming services were still very affordable and actually good. Online multiplayer games were a great time to play without every game feeling like you need to play full time to keep up with the meta. Sure Russia invaded crimea in that time, and the U.S. was bombing children in the Middle East but compared to today it felt like the world was mostly at peace.
That's where I'd go too. It was really the calm before the storm.
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Original question by @[email protected]
If I had my way, the Internet never would have existed. Despite the positives, I feel it's done more harm than good. It had the capacity to do great things and yet we used it to spread misinformation and evil. There is no benefit worth the evil that's happened due to giving everyone a voice. "Freedom" doesnt come from some obnoxious cunt ranting from their $80,000 truck drivers seat. Burn them, burn them now and let's move forward.
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I wouldn't. I'd leave things at now.
I think that the Internet has pretty much monotonically improved over time. Oh, sure, there are some things that I miss, but overall? Today wins solidly. Today:
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Bandwidth is much higher.
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Availability is much more widespread.
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Security is a lot better in most respects. Used to be most traffic on the Internet wasn't encrypted.
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Flash and ActiveX are gone on the Web.
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IPv6 is widely available, alleviating address constraints.
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Email spam is more or less solved, though it does make running your own mail server today a pain.
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Open source is a lot more widespread and mainstream.
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I'd say that the reliability of a lot of online services is better.
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The widespread use of containerization and VMs has dramatically reduced the cost of having a small server in a datacenter.
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GOG and Steam are pretty amazing ways to buy video games. The selection is inexpensive, readily available, and ludicrously vast.
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Ditto for Amazon compared to brick-and-mortar plus mail order.
How tf are you talking about the positives of the Internet while people are getting abused because of it? Bandwidth being higher allows them to spy on you more effectively. Availability hasn't changed enough for that to be relevant unless you're talking about spaceX. Which is owned by possibly one of the most evil people in american history.
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Security is a lot better in most respects. Used to be most traffic on the Internet wasn’t encrypted.
This is so true, although I kind of wish I had more time to fully explore the prank potential. The shit I could have convinced people of with a spoofed Wikipedia article...
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Do you not see the irony there?
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The late 90s or maybe the early 00s Probably pre-Google (so pre-1998) but maybe in their earliest days. Definitely pre YouTube and pre Facebook (so pre-2004). It's been pretty much all downhill since then.
All facebook users deserve to be slapped repeatedly to wake them up from the reality they've imposed on themselves.
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That's where I'd go too. It was really the calm before the storm.
Exactly. And if we could stop the storm... Wouldn't that be great?
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Back to the days when there were only a few TLDs... like .net .org .com. I'd then campaign for a law that disallowed any income-seeking behavior ... adverts, tracking, cookies, porn, scams, promotion, surveillance ... everywhere EXCEPT .com. Break that law, you lose your business and your servers, the CEO does serious time in jail, and noone working for that company is allowed back on the net anywhere until forever.
Sounds like you watch a lot of porn...
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If I had my way, the Internet never would have existed. Despite the positives, I feel it's done more harm than good. It had the capacity to do great things and yet we used it to spread misinformation and evil. There is no benefit worth the evil that's happened due to giving everyone a voice. "Freedom" doesnt come from some obnoxious cunt ranting from their $80,000 truck drivers seat. Burn them, burn them now and let's move forward.
Someone clearly wasn't alive before the internet
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Original question by @[email protected]
The problem isn't the internet, the problem is Capitalism, that used internet to turn more suffering into money. The problem is, there was never that magical time when everything was great, it's a fallacious thinking. It also applies to the internet.
The only path to anything positive is progress, not trying to go back to imaginary times that never existed. -
The problem isn't the internet, the problem is Capitalism, that used internet to turn more suffering into money. The problem is, there was never that magical time when everything was great, it's a fallacious thinking. It also applies to the internet.
The only path to anything positive is progress, not trying to go back to imaginary times that never existed.This question didn't say anything at all about problems and I think you've overreacted.
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I'm hoping that [email protected] will need to a rebirth of that sort lol
Yessssss. I want to run a node so bad. Soon, hopefully!
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This question didn't say anything at all about problems and I think you've overreacted.
Either OP wanted it or not, this is the language of "getting back to the better times" crowd.
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Someone clearly wasn't alive before the internet
I'm a millennial... The Internet had the promise of great things. Sharing the entirety of human knowledge with all, right?so much promise. But it's mostly used to share brain rot videos and misinformation. Like your one sentence quip that didn't provide anything beyond snark.
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Original question by @[email protected]
20 years before the internet would suit me just fine.
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20 years before the internet would suit me just fine.
It's a broad definition, but could mean 20 years before 1960-something, and that would put you right in a not that great time in Europe at least
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All facebook users deserve to be slapped repeatedly to wake them up from the reality they've imposed on themselves.
I still remember when Facebook first caught on, and I learned that it was a site on which people posted their real names and pictures of themselves and their families and their lives, and all I could think was, "Why in the hell would anyone ever do that?"
I still don't know.
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It's a broad definition, but could mean 20 years before 1960-something, and that would put you right in a not that great time in Europe at least
I’m a Canuck
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Do you not see the irony there?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Oh, I definitely see the irony, if you want to call it that. Pwning is far more fun when I control it and it's just for a laugh.
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I still remember when Facebook first caught on, and I learned that it was a site on which people posted their real names and pictures of themselves and their families and their lives, and all I could think was, "Why in the hell would anyone ever do that?"
I still don't know.
And then it turned into a white supremacy app.
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Exactly. And if we could stop the storm... Wouldn't that be great?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Yes it would. Looking back I think the time machine wouldn't buy us more than those few years, though. The things that made it accessible, fun and (sometimes artificially, unnaturally) useful were the exact same things that made it easy to repurpose into the monstrosity it gradually became.
The Wild West period was scattered and had shitty accessibility. Companies like Google inevitably arrived to make the process of browsing smoother, but as of 2010 hadn't started being evil yet. The alternate timeline that doesn't suck probably would have involved email growing directly into a version of ActivityPub in the 90's, and website dominance being bypassed entirely. (Although ISP struggles would have taken on a whole new dimension)
