<story><title>Welcome to the Old Internet Again</title><url>http://theoldnet.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>haroldegibbons</author><text>The internet pre-&amp;#x27;attention economy&amp;#x27; was so much more wholesome and pure. It used to be exciting to surf the web; now it feels like dumpster diving. Now it&amp;#x27;s something I try my best to avoid.&lt;p&gt;What happened?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stiray</author><text>I would say a bunch of average people came to the internet. Before that it was mostly reserved by geeks which valued information more than &amp;quot;form&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;ux&amp;#x2F;beauty(irelevant pictures included)&amp;#x2F;...&lt;p&gt;Now we have just another pop culture. Sad.&lt;p&gt;But I still use IRC. It is interesting that most of (to me) relevant developers (system level development, ...) are still hanging there.&lt;p&gt;IRC is all textual and it was never filled with all the garbage you can see on web, but they did invent alternatives where all the pop culture went (discord O.o) while I can enjoy my peace on IRC.&lt;p&gt;I am really mourning about usenet. It was dying but still kicking, then google destroyed it with google groups.</text></comment>
<story><title>Welcome to the Old Internet Again</title><url>http://theoldnet.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>haroldegibbons</author><text>The internet pre-&amp;#x27;attention economy&amp;#x27; was so much more wholesome and pure. It used to be exciting to surf the web; now it feels like dumpster diving. Now it&amp;#x27;s something I try my best to avoid.&lt;p&gt;What happened?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thunderbird120</author><text>You answered your own question. Attention is essentially the currency of the internet and it&amp;#x27;s a finite resource. People got better at competing for your attention. Things are now optimized for &amp;quot;engagement&amp;quot; rather than enjoyment.</text></comment>