Thoughts on the current state of the internet?

[ZinRicky]

Those users post solely about retro games, and they never discuss politics or recent events, and they rarely discuss their personal lives (and when they do, they don't go much into detail).

I blame American marketing strategies for their "make it personal" bullshit

 

[Andrew Eldritch]

Everything is monetized and politicized online, both on the English speaking internet and on my countries internet. And while censorship is increased, there are more retards and hateful bullshit than ever. I have never cared less about the opinions of people I know (and people I don't know) than I do now.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

The current state of the internet is unsustainable, and will likely become less centralized long term. I'm not saying this because I'm some cringe crypto bro, but because I know what's required to host the giant socials like >reddit, Facebook, TikTok, etc.: insanely cheap servers. Seriously, server space is so cheap that a lot of companies will not even replace dead nodes because the time/effort of finding the exact physical location and replacing it is more expensive than just inserting a new one into an empty slot. Thing is, it's very likely that servers will get profoundly more expensive again in the coming decade due to supply chain disruptions originating from China and reverberating through east Asia, and the inevitable lag time as manufacturers try to re-onshore their manufacturing.

Sites that make very little money but have huge data needs (like Twitter) are going to struggle to keep up. Stack up one or two events where servers go down and significant portions of the website's history are lost permanently and you'll have a mass exodus from the site. Couple this with growing frustrations from all sides about "big tech" and I wouldn't be surprised if you begin to see many small sites catering to less-generalized audiences, hosted privately or through something like AWS.

I saw another interesting theory recently that if socials begin forcing people to use real names and verify it somehow, more people will flock to dark web sites. Not sure how much faith I put in that one, but it's an interesting concept to think about.

 

[manpaint]

I saw another interesting theory recently that if socials begin forcing people to use real names and verify it somehow, more people will flock to dark web sites. Not sure how much faith I put in that one, but it's an interesting concept to think about.

Knowing Facebook is a thing, I doubt this would happens. Even if it were to become law, it would be completely unenforcable and would just become another thing people would ignore.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

Even if it were to become law, it would be completely unenforcable and would just become another thing people would ignore.

Winnie the Pooh has entered the chat

 

[manpaint]

Winnie the Pooh has entered the chat

Surely not every website in China is able to enforce this law? I can see the main social media forced to comply, but surely they are obscure website that are not regulated by the CPP (even if they should be on paper)?

 

[Orlando Smooth]

Surely not every website in China is able to enforce this law? I can see the main social media forced to comply, but surely they are obscure website that are not regulated by the CPP (even if they should be on paper)?

Perhaps you've heard of the great firewall of China? They truly have their own parallel internet. Virtually all Chinese websites use WeChat to login. WeChat is very much officially interwoven with the government, and is tied to things like your bank account and medical records - believe me, WeChat knows exactly who you are. Some Chinese people try to get around these restrictions by getting VPNs to access websites that are blocked in China, but many/most of these VPNs are owned by the CCP which uses them to covertly monitor growing strains of discontent before they can become large enough to actually pose a threat to the social order.

And if you think the CCP has anything other than absolute control over everything in China, and especially so everything related to tech, I don't really know what to tell you. In Chinese media they boast about it as cooperation with the government while the rest of the world recognizes it as complete authoritarianism. No one is attempting to hide it.

 

[Obake]

I blame American marketing strategies for their "make it personal" bullshit

That could very well be the reason. American politics in general is pretty messed up. Thankfully politics here aren't so divisive.

 

[lingo]

its way easier to find information on anything, way faster than it used to be and ive had fun and been in good communities even on apps like discord, but i don't like how your online presence is so connected with you in real life, how loads of people seem to constantly be on a soapbox preaching about something (usually to people who already agree) and how centralized it is
overall its way easier to use but overall i feel it would be really nice if decentralized communities returned

 

[manpaint]

Perhaps you've heard of the great firewall of China? They truly have their own parallel internet. Virtually all Chinese websites use WeChat to login. WeChat is very much officially interwoven with the government, and is tied to things like your bank account and medical records - believe me, WeChat knows exactly who you are. Some Chinese people try to get around these restrictions by getting VPNs to access websites that are blocked in China, but many/most of these VPNs are owned by the CCP which uses them to covertly monitor growing strains of discontent before they can become large enough to actually pose a threat to the social order.

And if you think the CCP has anything other than absolute control over everything in China, and especially so everything related to tech, I don't really know what to tell you. In Chinese media they boast about it as cooperation with the government while the rest of the world recognizes it as complete authoritarianism. No one is attempting to hide it.

Well that is terrifying. I must say that I completely overestimated the reach of the CCP.

 

[punishedgnome]

I've smoked pot on and off for the better part of two decades and I'd compare what happened the the Internet to what happened to stoner culture.

If you wanted to get some weed back in 2005, you'd have to find a dealer through a friend. These dealers varied in nature and were kind of quirky in the own ways. Some of them were super sketchy and you just wanted to get your shit and get out as soon as possible. I remember one sketchy guy being very insistent that you sit down and smoke with him before you leave and he'd just sit there with no shirt on staring a hole through you as you passed a joint back an fourth. Other times you'd maybe meet this cool guy who lived in a basement apartment. You'd just go in and he'd be chilling and playing Xbox and he'd go "Yeah man, just take what you need and leave the money on the coffee table." Other times it'd be someone in between, like one guy who was clearly running a bunch of cash only businesses out of his garage such as under the table car repair in addition to selling weed. Toward the late end of the early 2000s there was this fat girl who clearly wanted me to fuck her. I'd pick her up in my car and she'd hook me up with weed. Not for free, mind you, she'd just buy extra when she went to her dealer and resell it to me for the same cost. We'd have a smoke and a coffee and stare at the ocean while she talked about how her sister thinks I'm a bad man for not hitting on her.

At the end of the day they were all imperfect but they were real people and they all had their own little quirks and their own vibes. You were going into each other's personal space and you had a real, organic relationship with them. They weren't getting paid by some corporate entity to please you. You generally wouldn't run into your grandmother or a yuppie soccer mom in these places. This is what getting information and files was like on the old Internet. Your average person would talk about buying weed and say things like "How do I know it's not laced with something?" Or "How do I know I won't get stabbed?" just like people used to say "How will I know I'm not downloading a virus?" about files on the Internet.

Since weed has been legalized up here a few years back, it more so resembles the modern Internet. Almost all the weed is sold in these brightly lit, sanitized, centrally located stores. The people working there are paid to smile at you when you come in. There's no chance to vibe with them or chit chat. There is no organic relationship. The weed comes in these perfect little containers that look like pill bottles with health warnings stamped all over the labels. You see people in these stores that you never would have seen coming out of a dealer's house 15 years ago like yuppies and elderly people. Much like how you can still stumble across sites like Agora Road, you could probably still find the guy with no shirt or the guy playing Xbox to sell you weed if you really want to, but most people won't. They prefer the clean, sanitized stores with the girl who is paid to smile at them when they come in where the weed is dolled out in perfect little containers that resemble pill bottles.

I think most people just want to feel safe. They don't want fun or adventure or quirkiness or gritty realism or to feel like they're part of some underground movement, they want safe. That's it. I think when stuff goes mainstream and is sanitized, what's happening is it's been transformed into a form that makes people feel safe to use it. When corporations discovered the Internet was a valuable medium for advertising, it was only a matter of time before they tried to make it safe so they could get everyone on it.

 

[Taleisin]

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[vaporwavemaster1]

これは興味深い質問です。長い間インターネットに携わってきた私は、一般的に、インターネットは現在上昇していると思います。少し前よりは良くなっています。人々は、健全なコミュニケーションを促進するためにどのような要素が必要かについて、より意識するようになっています。

また、大規模なテクノロジー企業の不健康な慣行と、分散化の重要性についても認識が高まっています。より良いインターネットを作るには教育が必要です。

 

[bluesunnyfox]

Honestly, the internet is alright. You can communicate with people and things are way more convenient. But it's not great to know all that's for collecting and selling data, and pushing ads into your face. It can get very dystopian and creepy sometimes. I remember phone companies were considering making consumers watch ads before they even unlock their phones a few months ago. I kind of like sanitised social media (just not too sanitised), but the downside is that a lot of shit is censored, there are a lot of hiveminds and there is a sort of pressure to have the right opinion. You can see people completely lose their morals over social media, and become irrationally angry. The fact that the Metaverse and NFTs have been rejected by most consumers do give me a lot of hope though.

This is just a rant, but there's just a boring NPC side to the internet nowadays, completely influenced by corporations and capitalism, while attempting to be quirky and relatable (they usually just get mocked lol). Look at the Hype House to see what I mean. Over the past few years, there have been a rise of boring, vapid people trying to make a quick buck from the internet who seem too privileged to be interesting and have actual life experiences. There also has to be a certain amount of free time and privilege to be a successful content creator, move to LA and live in a mansion. The internet is really just another vessel for capitalism.

 

[Deleted member 3990]

I would complain about the current state of the internet, but I believe and hope that proprietary internet is going to die soon anyways and free internet will flourish again.

 

[>__<]

I would complain about the current state of the internet, but I believe and hope that proprietary internet is going to die soon anyways and free internet will flourish again.

Sadly, I doubt it will. Normies just want to press a button and be at their favourite comfortable, centralized, sanitized site. Options scare them and change confuses them.

 

[lingo]

I believe and hope that proprietary internet is going to die soon anyways

out of interest what makes u believe this?

 

[Deleted member 3990]

out of interest what makes u believe this?

Mostly the reasons mentioned in the posts above mine.

1) It's reaching critical mass. Proprietary internet is mostly made out of huge websites with huge server farms that require huge maintenance costs. A single user doesn't earn the website a lot, so serving a user must be cheap. Currently companies are able to keep server costs low but they're steadily rising, and once a large economic blow or even merely a shift in trend causes server costs to go up to a level where the companies can't make a profit anymore, the entire thing will collapse.
2) People are getting tired. Even for the barely-sapient 90% that we like to call the "NPCs," the constant decrease in quality for these services is getting noticeable. There's only so much bullshit they can take before they simply stop using the declining services. Also, a subtle but noticeable anti-internet sentiment is rising among the gen-Z crowd. Once they overtake the millennials as the general adult population, the numbers for the tech companies might start stagnating due to this. While this will not instantly destroy them, it'll make it easier for the first reason to do so. It'll also contribute to the rise of the free internet.

 

[manpaint]

Mostly the reasons mentioned in the posts above mine.

1) It's reaching critical mass. Proprietary internet is mostly made out of huge websites with huge server farms that require huge maintenance costs. A single user doesn't earn the website a lot, so serving a user must be cheap. Currently companies are able to keep server costs low but they're steadily rising, and once a large economic blow or even merely a shift in trend causes server costs to go up to a level where the companies can't make a profit anymore, the entire thing will collapse.
2) People are getting tired. Even for the barely-sapient 90% that we like to call the "NPCs," the constant decrease in quality for these services is getting noticeable. There's only so much bullshit they can take before they simply stop using the declining services. Also, a subtle but noticeable anti-internet sentiment is rising among the gen-Z crowd. Once they overtake the millennials as the general adult population, the numbers for the tech companies might start stagnating due to this. While this will not instantly destroy them, it'll make it easier for the first reason to do so. It'll also contribute to the rise of the free internet.

I think the situation is comparable to the gaming industry. A lot of people are tired of buggy and predatory big budget games and thus gravitate towards indie games.

As you said, I also think that the indie web will only rise in opularity from there.

Now that I think about it, the whole cryptocurrency/NFT/Metaverse inferno was based on a smilar sentiment. I despite NFT as much as the next guy, but it cannot be denied that it explots the desire people have for decentralization and freedom.

The only thing I hope is the atrocity calling itself web3 will not fully alienate people to seek alternatives. I wouldn't be suprised if most people start dismissing indie web in the future due to the landscape they have created.

 

[Vaporeon]

Mostly the reasons mentioned in the posts above mine.

1) It's reaching critical mass. Proprietary internet is mostly made out of huge websites with huge server farms that require huge maintenance costs. A single user doesn't earn the website a lot, so serving a user must be cheap. Currently companies are able to keep server costs low but they're steadily rising, and once a large economic blow or even merely a shift in trend causes server costs to go up to a level where the companies can't make a profit anymore, the entire thing will collapse.
2) People are getting tired. Even for the barely-sapient 90% that we like to call the "NPCs," the constant decrease in quality for these services is getting noticeable. There's only so much bullshit they can take before they simply stop using the declining services. Also, a subtle but noticeable anti-internet sentiment is rising among the gen-Z crowd. Once they overtake the millennials as the general adult population, the numbers for the tech companies might start stagnating due to this. While this will not instantly destroy them, it'll make it easier for the first reason to do so. It'll also contribute to the rise of the free internet.

I agree with this, and additionally think that big tech is more precarious than people might think.
1. It's generally accepted that the current state of big tech is the web 1.0 bubble all over again, simply propped up with a lot more money
2. It's also generally accepted that the main product of these companies is data, which they use to sell ad services. I think the actual value of data is overrated, and digital ads are increasingly less effective over time. A lot of smoke and mirrors is currently employed by the more successful companies to sell digital advertising as a more valuable product than it actually is. As more people gain awareness of this, as well as cut back on ads due to recession, companies will begin to struggle to sell ads and data services.
3. Big and bloated companies just tend to decline over time for a number of reasons. Most importantly, the internal leadership slowly gets infiltrated by sociopaths who suck the corpse of the company dry while more and more valuable employees + customers leave until it's a slowly dying husk of its former self.