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Welcome to the web we lost

Technology
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  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    Rediscover is a good word. Discovery depends on the entry point.

    We start with the entry points designed for entrapment.

    Should just avoid them. That's hard, because their creators use all the casino-style and other means possible, since their power and profits depend on them functioning.

    I've recently realized that all things I blamed on the Internet as it's designed being obsolete, they are not caused by that. It's not obsolete. It's a system that can function well into the next millennium, even.

    And even the Web as in year 2000.

    Encryption, hashing, signatures, all the cryptography are the only qualitatively new thing.

    But they can be applied to the old model, and it's simple - we use a reserved range of v6 addresses and we map identifiers to them. An identifier is derived from person's public key. Overlay networks are a thing.

    We can do other things, say, publish user contacts and public keys in DNS. That allows secure store-and-forward communication over any service, not just trusted one, with encrypted messages.

    The model itself allows bloody everything, people just don't use it to the full extent.

  • There are people who work late into the night creating something for the benefit of humanity or just for their own pleasure in creation. There are other people that take those things and bleed them dry to make profit to the point of ruination. There are yet others who use them to spew out hatreds that eat away everything good inside themselves and those that will seek out depravity. What we are getting in this is not the loss of any promise of the internet or the coming of AI but an uncomfortably clear reflection of what, in the mass we actually are.

    Humans do indeed contain multitudes, but I think this gives too much credit to the influence of corporate (and their political interference) interests. Enshittification is an active choice made in board rooms. Disinformation is an agenda. They're not inevitable grassroots outgrowths.

    Lemmy, curated to avoid AI, curtail corporate news, and where the admins and community are fighting bots and trolls is an example of the reclamation attempt.

    And you know what? It's kinda nice here.

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    418 - I am a teapot

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    Limitless opportunity comes with limitless opportunities for corruption

    Seems obvious but people don't ever learn that till we see it happen over and over. .
    I have.

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    For the first time strangers were meeting other than face to face, and without any of the social context clues that would have previously guided us in person.

    The suggest this was the 90's? More like the 80's. BBS were doing this for quite a while.

  • Rediscover is a good word. Discovery depends on the entry point.

    We start with the entry points designed for entrapment.

    Should just avoid them. That's hard, because their creators use all the casino-style and other means possible, since their power and profits depend on them functioning.

    I've recently realized that all things I blamed on the Internet as it's designed being obsolete, they are not caused by that. It's not obsolete. It's a system that can function well into the next millennium, even.

    And even the Web as in year 2000.

    Encryption, hashing, signatures, all the cryptography are the only qualitatively new thing.

    But they can be applied to the old model, and it's simple - we use a reserved range of v6 addresses and we map identifiers to them. An identifier is derived from person's public key. Overlay networks are a thing.

    We can do other things, say, publish user contacts and public keys in DNS. That allows secure store-and-forward communication over any service, not just trusted one, with encrypted messages.

    The model itself allows bloody everything, people just don't use it to the full extent.

    The people who create for the sake of creativity are not doing it to be flashy or attract anyone or anything. The internet had a groundswell of people who want to make money, so here we are

  • 418 - I am a teapot

    So... no coffee then?

    Aside: I'm still annoyed with Mark Nottingham for trying to assassinate 418.

  • The people who create for the sake of creativity are not doing it to be flashy or attract anyone or anything. The internet had a groundswell of people who want to make money, so here we are

    The internet has plenty of people who don't want to spend their effort for others' moneymaking.

    All we need is a transparent and simple process of using the real system.

    Registering a DNS record is still cumbersome and done only by technical people, just like making a simple webpage. Or hidden someplace hard to find in Yandex/Google/other web interfaces. Despite it not being hard.

    Maybe some simpler tools are needed too - say, Geminispace is an example of one such.

    But in general what's hard is as hard as things that are now easy were. Just the same effort didn't go there.

    Say, it's not a common thing now to register a DNS record like one person's "internet identity" (just personal websites maybe), but if it were, would it be harder than registering an e-mail account or a phone number? And then, if the system were used as it should, the rest could be done without users troubling themselves. Navigating that "internet contact directory" like you do in Facebook, sending DMs like you do in Facebook, but over an Internet protocol (say, XMPP or something new using that contact functionality) by a native application, having forums and feeds and e-mail and filesharing without platforms. All via native applications just as easy to use as the social media we have.

    OK, I'm sleepy. Just - it's technically possible.

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    30 years ago creating content was hard but also destroying it was difficult. Now it's very easy to post shit online but internet is also full of bots, scrapers, malware, scam and spam. I don't think you can separate those two. We can keep the internet private and free but full of shit or make it safe and "fun" but difficult to access.

  • Rediscover is a good word. Discovery depends on the entry point.

    We start with the entry points designed for entrapment.

    Should just avoid them. That's hard, because their creators use all the casino-style and other means possible, since their power and profits depend on them functioning.

    I've recently realized that all things I blamed on the Internet as it's designed being obsolete, they are not caused by that. It's not obsolete. It's a system that can function well into the next millennium, even.

    And even the Web as in year 2000.

    Encryption, hashing, signatures, all the cryptography are the only qualitatively new thing.

    But they can be applied to the old model, and it's simple - we use a reserved range of v6 addresses and we map identifiers to them. An identifier is derived from person's public key. Overlay networks are a thing.

    We can do other things, say, publish user contacts and public keys in DNS. That allows secure store-and-forward communication over any service, not just trusted one, with encrypted messages.

    The model itself allows bloody everything, people just don't use it to the full extent.

    This is probably a bit "I'm 14 and this is deep", but I was thinking the other day about how "pull down to refresh" is weirdly similar to pulling a slot machine handle. 😬

    I don't think that was ever part of its design (didn't the Tweetie dev invent it?), but still.

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    I've been thinking a lot about webrings lately. Now that Google is basically cutting off traffic from the indie web.

    I feel like everyone's kinda having the same idea at the same time, which gives me some hope, but... it's difficult enough to find a ring to join, that I think most people will give up?

    I don't know what I think the solution is. Centralising it and having a big, user-friendly "webring platform" is just inviting more enshittification. But the handful of webring directories I've found are really lacking.

    Does anyone have any suggestions? Or, does anyone want to team up and make, like, a Gaymers Webring? (That's pretty much what I'm looking for.)

  • So... no coffee then?

    Aside: I'm still annoyed with Mark Nottingham for trying to assassinate 418.

    I am glad that he tried to assassinate 418, because the massive outcry that led to 418 being saved is something wholesome that I love.

    Link with context for anyone unfamiliar with the context: https://save418.com/

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    I think the thing you are missing is probably the community sense you had though. In your youth you went online to talk about x-files instead of going to the mall; people on IRC probably recognized your username, probably knew your opinions on scully and moulder. You can derive some self-worth from feeling like people know you, or feeling like people are interested in what you have to say. Now you have to scream at the top of your lungs while masturbating on camera to have a chance of being heard. Discord exists for now, you can find some small fandom to engage with there. You can accept the fact that your ego is not adapted to measuring yourself against all of humanity at once and find a smaller pond to swim around in; or start screaming and masturbating.

  • For the first time strangers were meeting other than face to face, and without any of the social context clues that would have previously guided us in person.

    The suggest this was the 90's? More like the 80's. BBS were doing this for quite a while.

    My blazing fast 26k baud modem had my friends and I connecting ....(mom, I'm on the computer!)....connecting... (BeepBongBoobBeeereREEEEEEEEEEEE Pingping ding eoooohhhhh bding) connecting to the greatest BBS with color ascii to play the newest text based space trade war adventure games !!!

    As a 10 year old, though, it was never about meeting people. It was just cool and fun.

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    My first real 'community' online was mp3.com. When I joined I was like the 132nd person on that site. It was such an incredible thing back then. People could post their own music, get feedback, promote, find a label, and get paid for streams/downloads.

    I actually earned money from my music while chatting with future mega stars like Darude and Dido.

    I got some real world tracks out there, had my stuff played from Australia to Canada, and there was a time I could walk into a club and hear my music being played.

    Surreal thinking about it now.

    I've never had that kind of connection or sense of belonging online since.

  • In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.

    It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.

    We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today's internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.

    The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.

    But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.

    Very well written piece. I like his perceptions about the speed of how we access the internet being shaped by content being constantly pushed at us by feeds. I think it's having a profound effect on people's whole thought process. He mentions exploring a new website and an hour goes by - but that hour ends and he's done, at least for now. You never get done with a feed, it's an endless, self-refilling "in" basket. I think we perceive and handle feeds the same as a stack of work items we're supposed to get through. We want that sense of completion, so we try to process each item as fast as possible - taking in minimal information, making a superficial value judgement, and swiping left or right on it ASAP so we can scroll to the next item. Then we apply this same false sense of urgency to how we process the real world, which lowers the quality of our decisions and even our enjoyment of life.

  • I've been thinking a lot about webrings lately. Now that Google is basically cutting off traffic from the indie web.

    I feel like everyone's kinda having the same idea at the same time, which gives me some hope, but... it's difficult enough to find a ring to join, that I think most people will give up?

    I don't know what I think the solution is. Centralising it and having a big, user-friendly "webring platform" is just inviting more enshittification. But the handful of webring directories I've found are really lacking.

    Does anyone have any suggestions? Or, does anyone want to team up and make, like, a Gaymers Webring? (That's pretty much what I'm looking for.)

    domain cliques, webrings, forums, and guestbooks were wonderful and they should come back

  • Humans do indeed contain multitudes, but I think this gives too much credit to the influence of corporate (and their political interference) interests. Enshittification is an active choice made in board rooms. Disinformation is an agenda. They're not inevitable grassroots outgrowths.

    Lemmy, curated to avoid AI, curtail corporate news, and where the admins and community are fighting bots and trolls is an example of the reclamation attempt.

    And you know what? It's kinda nice here.

    Enshittification is an inevitable consequence of the economic system we're living in

  • There are people who work late into the night creating something for the benefit of humanity or just for their own pleasure in creation. There are other people that take those things and bleed them dry to make profit to the point of ruination. There are yet others who use them to spew out hatreds that eat away everything good inside themselves and those that will seek out depravity. What we are getting in this is not the loss of any promise of the internet or the coming of AI but an uncomfortably clear reflection of what, in the mass we actually are.

    Is it though? Its always far easier to be loud and obnoxious than do something constructive, even with the internet and LLMs, in fact those things are amplifiers which if anything make the attention imbalance even more drastic and unrepresentative of actual human behaviour. In the time it takes me to write this comment some troll can write a dozen hateful ones, or a bot can write a thousand. Doesn't mean humans are shitty in a 1000/1 ratio, just means shitty people can now be a thousand times louder.

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    B
    That’s not the right analogy here. The better analogy would be something like: Your scary mafia-related neighbor shows up with a document saying your land belongs to his land. You said no way, you have connections with someone important that assured you your house is yours only and they’ll help you with another mafia if they want to invade your house. The whole neighborhood gets scared of an upcoming bloodbath that might drag everyone into it. But now your son says he actually agrees that your house belongs to your neighbor, and he’s likely waiting until you’re old enough to possibly give it up to him.
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    A
    It was very boring.
  • We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

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    mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldM
    I never claimed to like Elon. I don’t. I never expressed support for this administration’s policies. I don’t. you just defend his right to run spaceX on specialK. mmkay bud.
  • Pimax: one more brand exposed for promoting "positive reviews".

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    moose@moose.bestM
    This doesn't really surprise me, I've gotten weird vibes from Pimax for years. Not so much to do with their hardware, but how their sales / promo team operates. A while back at my old workplace we randomly got contacted by Pimax trying to have us carry their headset, which was weird since we didn't sell VR stuff or computers even, just other electronics. It was a very out of place request which we basically said we wouldn't consider it until we can verify the quality of the headset, after which they never replied.
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    [image: 8978adf5-b473-470c-9f21-62a31e2fbc77.gif]
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    E
    No, just laminated ones. Closed at one end. Easy enough to make or buy. You can even improvise the propellant.
  • OpenAI plans massive UAE data center project

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    TD Cowen (which is basically the US arm of one of the largest Canadian investment banks) did an extensive report on the state of AI investment. What they found was that despite all their big claims about the future of AI, Microsoft were quietly allowing letters of intent for billions of dollars worth of new compute capacity to expire. Basically, scrapping future plans for expansion, but in a way that's not showy and doesn't require any kind of big announcement. The equivalent of promising to be at the party and then just not showing up. Not long after this reporting came out, it got confirmed by Microsoft, and not long after it came out that Amazon was doing the same thing. Ed Zitron has a really good write up on it; https://www.wheresyoured.at/power-cut/ Amazon isn't the big surprise, they've always been the most cautious of the big players on the whole AI thing. Microsoft on the other hand are very much trying to play things both ways. They know AI is fucked, which is why they're scaling back, but they've also invested a lot of money into their OpenAI partnership so now they have to justify that expenditure which means convincing investors that consumers absolutely love their AI products and are desparate for more. As always, follow the money. Stuff like the three mile island thing is mostly just applying for permits and so on at this point. Relatively small investments. As soon as it comes to big money hitting the table, they're pulling back. That's how you know how they really feel.
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    Then that's changed since the last time I toyed with the idea. Which, granted, was probably 20 years ago...