<story><title>The old internet died and we watched and did nothing</title><url>https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-we-killed-the-old-internet</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Timberwolf</author><text>I thought similar. To me what Buzzfeed are calling the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; here is something I very much remember bemoaning as the &amp;quot;new Internet&amp;quot; in which dedicated protocols such as NNTP and IRC got displaced by brattish commercial upstarts whose web-based versions had 10% of the quality-of-life features and about 5% of the community etiquette. However they displaced everything that came before them because you could embed images, have an animated avatar and (most importantly) not have to delve into the world of finding a client of choice and connecting it to your ISP&amp;#x27;s news servers.&lt;p&gt;What I find myself missing more than anything else is that news server was something &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; paid for, either as part of an ISP package, as a dedicated service or your university tuition fees. The commercial model was purely the provision of that resource - not selling your data, nor being a vector for targeted political ads. There was no incentive to make the basic mechanics of discussion worse or promote flame wars in the name of &amp;quot;engagement&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;monetisation&amp;quot;, and while I&amp;#x27;m sure the smaller community size played a part things seemed to bump along with a far greater degree of civility and allowance for misunderstanding.</text></item><item><author>rasengan</author><text>The old internet died long before these centralized services appeared. The old internet was when we ran our own servers, built and hosted our own websites, and we were truly free in the wild wild west.&lt;p&gt;Its easier than ever to run your own servers, but today few do.&lt;p&gt;The old internet is dead (for now) and it looks more like the BBS era today. But we innovated past that then, and we will innovate past that now.&lt;p&gt;I am greatly looking forward to all of the decentralization work that is in progress from the numerous people on HN and the internet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>StevePerkins</author><text>I started college, and discovered the Internet, in fall of 1993.  An epoch infamously known as &amp;quot;Eternal September&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eternal_September&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eternal_September&lt;/a&gt;).  The old-timers on Usenet and IRC at the time thought that me and my classmates were idiots.  That we killed the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;From my perspective though, the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; died when Deja News sold out to Google.  When phpBB forums started replacing Usenet, and ICQ or other chat apps started replacing IRC.&lt;p&gt;From the perspective of those newbies, the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; died when phpBB forums were replaced by LiveJournal pages and blog comment sections.  When ICQ fragmented into AOL, Yahoo, and MSN instant messengers.&lt;p&gt;Those people saw the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; die when pages and blogs coalesced into early social media.&lt;p&gt;Those people saw the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; die when social media took on its contemporary shape (e.g. YouTube videos becoming more professional and SEO-oriented, clickbait, photo and video-based social media surpassing text-based social media).&lt;p&gt;This article is just some person at Buzzfeed, writing a eulogy for the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; as understood by the generation of people who have jobs at Buzzfeed.</text></comment>
<story><title>The old internet died and we watched and did nothing</title><url>https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-we-killed-the-old-internet</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Timberwolf</author><text>I thought similar. To me what Buzzfeed are calling the &amp;quot;old Internet&amp;quot; here is something I very much remember bemoaning as the &amp;quot;new Internet&amp;quot; in which dedicated protocols such as NNTP and IRC got displaced by brattish commercial upstarts whose web-based versions had 10% of the quality-of-life features and about 5% of the community etiquette. However they displaced everything that came before them because you could embed images, have an animated avatar and (most importantly) not have to delve into the world of finding a client of choice and connecting it to your ISP&amp;#x27;s news servers.&lt;p&gt;What I find myself missing more than anything else is that news server was something &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; paid for, either as part of an ISP package, as a dedicated service or your university tuition fees. The commercial model was purely the provision of that resource - not selling your data, nor being a vector for targeted political ads. There was no incentive to make the basic mechanics of discussion worse or promote flame wars in the name of &amp;quot;engagement&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;monetisation&amp;quot;, and while I&amp;#x27;m sure the smaller community size played a part things seemed to bump along with a far greater degree of civility and allowance for misunderstanding.</text></item><item><author>rasengan</author><text>The old internet died long before these centralized services appeared. The old internet was when we ran our own servers, built and hosted our own websites, and we were truly free in the wild wild west.&lt;p&gt;Its easier than ever to run your own servers, but today few do.&lt;p&gt;The old internet is dead (for now) and it looks more like the BBS era today. But we innovated past that then, and we will innovate past that now.&lt;p&gt;I am greatly looking forward to all of the decentralization work that is in progress from the numerous people on HN and the internet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>api</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re forgetting spam. Spam destroyed all those first generation federated systems. IRC survived because it was too niche for spammers to target much but spam is the primary thing that killed Usenet and email as a truly open system.&lt;p&gt;The closed systems were better able to fight spam because they could easily ban people and IPs.&lt;p&gt;On a deeper level spam, &amp;quot;brattish&amp;quot; commercial sites, etc. all come from when money got involved.&lt;p&gt;The old Internet was mostly noncommercial. Money changes everything.&lt;p&gt;Even on the new sites I saw a massive shift when e.g. it became possible to monetize YouTube videos. All the sudden everything became about engagement and controversy and got big and divisive and dumb and flashy.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately we must adapt or perish. There is no going back. I think all new systems must be designed with the trial by fire of spam and other profit motivated attacks in mind from the start.</text></comment>