Comment by poszlem 4 days ago
I am not saying that it's good or bad, and the geopolitical situation has changed a lot, but I miss the relative innocence, openness, and sense of unity that characterised the 2000-2010s internet.
We are slowly going in the direction of European internet, American internet, Chinese internet, Russian internet...
> The 1990s-2010s Internet was a golden age
It was the golden age because from the 1990 to 2010, the internet was majority american. For the entire 90s, the internet population was something ridiculous like 95% american. Fun times.
> in the sense that even though the Internet was a child of the US military-industrial-research complex, political powers didn't yet perceive it as a potential threat vector or even comprehend it at all ("the internet is a series of tunes").
Comprehend it at all? Are you joking. Maybe the dumb politicians didn't know it but certainly the real people in charge certainly knew it's potential.
> Social media and "Web 2.0" were probably the death knell for this era
The death nell of the era was the smartphone which allowed millions of computer illiterate peoples around the world to join the internet. The demographics of the internet was definitely changing in the 2000s, but the arrival of the smartphone toward the end of the decade accelerated the demographic shift. Now americans make up a small portion of the internet population.
> European internet, American internet, Chinese internet, Russian internet...
Not sure about the European one. Unlike Russia or China, we don't seem capable to produce our own services, or to not use the US ones. Maybe it'll change with the increased hostility of US government and tech CEOs?
> seem capable to produce our own services, or to not use the US ones.
Like the China/US situation, as soon as there's friction against using the US ones people will switch to local competitors. There was a UK competitor to Facebook around the time of its launch called "Friends Reunited". Technologically these things are not as hard as recruiting users, overcoming the natural monopoly effects, and handling moderation.
A confrontation has long been brewing over the Microsoft Ireland "safe harbor" case.
> We are slowly going in the direction of European internet, American internet, Chinese internet, Russian internet...
That has always existed, you just may not be aware of it if you are from an English speaking country, because those other parts are not easily accessible without knowledge of the respective languages.
Not only,
European computer, American computer, Chinese computer, Russian computer...
European OS, American OS, Chinese OS, Russian OS...
European programming language, American programming language, Chinese programming language, Russian programming language...
Just like in the good old days of computing during cold war.
I 100% agree, I think social media has been a complete mistake, facebook's creation is my version of eternal november since I joined the web in 1999
The big reason I think it changed is that the internet went from being a place for nerds and geeks, when there was a technical barrier to getting online, to a place where there is essentially no barrier. As a result the web now reflects the innocence, openness, and intellectual curiosity of the average person, since the internet has become a daily part of everyone's life not just a subsection of the world that appeals to us.
I miss that too. I was in China before 2005 and the Internet was pretty much free. I used to speak to the quake editing group on IRC about mapping until deep into the night.
I think it's going to get more segmented. And not only that, the hardware, the OS, everything.
That said, I believe HN is a good platform. I don't think it's banned in China and people here can keep politics out of technical discussions, at least for now.
Bound to happen when the internet becomes weaponized, unfortunately. It's kind of crazy to begin with that we put all of our public infrastructure on a network Russia and China have wired access to from their home countries and it's lasted this long when you think about it.
That shrinks by the minute, thanks to AI-assisted translators.
I had a long-distance relationship with someone when I was in my very early 20s who does not speak English nor my first language. I do not think language barrier is a difficult obstacle to overcome today if it was not much of an issue 10 years ago.
The 1990s-2010s Internet was a golden age in the sense that even though the Internet was a child of the US military-industrial-research complex, political powers didn't yet perceive it as a potential threat vector or even comprehend it at all ("the internet is a series of tunes"). Many of its users also came from academic or technical backgrounds, which helped to maintain shared cultural values (although this was constantly eroding over time - see "Eternal September").
Social media and "Web 2.0" were probably the death knell for this era - while they were wonderful for democratization of the Internet's benefits, the merger of Internet culture and non-Internet culture meant that all the ills of the latter were inflicted on the former.