The internet I grew up with and loved couldn’t survive having the whole population on it. It became about making money off the userbase, political manipulation, and addictive distractions. It’s success killed it.
Because it’s run by companies and not people like before. Because the original internet community grew and they prefer being in family and outside.
How deliciously ironic that this is paywalled.
“Why the internet isn’t fun anymore” - proceeds to talk about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
Completely fails to mention any fediverse sites, or any of the millions of other sites out there.
If you’re the author, the internet isn’t fun anymore because you don’t use it. You visit the corporate websites only. You either never learned how to use the internet, or you’re not interested in actually trying.
Its like the person who never leaves their neighborhood and complains that life is boring.
Even worse when you realize it’s the job of these journalists to tell people there’s a whole world out there. The general public may not know about this, but if you’re a journalist making these claims, they should know better
I miss the days of NewGrounds, Miniclip, and Kongregate.
I miss Flash games on browsers. Limewire. YouTube before influencers.
I miss the joy of StumbleUpon back when the web was exciting and unique.
Whenever I think of the good old days of the internet (like 2000-2009) I think of using stumbleupon and finding the best and most random stuff.
It’s still there but it is not the same. I spent waaay to many hours in weird places thanks to that stumble button. Still regularly go to KOL, which I found there.
https://www.stumbleupon.com/ https://www.kingdomofloathing.com/login.php?loginid=dbbda548c821441e8833e660bcb4816b
