<story><title>They can and will ruin everything you love</title><url>https://www.welcometohellworld.com/they-can-and-will-ruin-everything-you-love/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jbm</author><text>I try not to comment on stuff like this but I&amp;#x27;m going to make a one-time exception.&lt;p&gt;Ask Gen-Xers, specifically those who are not over-consuming news media and the harmful generalist social media (Reddit&amp;#x27;s default subs, Twitter&amp;#x27;s political echo chambers).  My life is way, way better now than it was prior to the internet, Google and half a dozen other services.&lt;p&gt;Even HN&amp;#x27;s favourite boogieman Facebook provided me with insane value.  For example:&lt;p&gt;- While I lived abroad, it provided an easy, passive way for me to keep in touch with my family.  Compare that to my parents&amp;#x27; desperate 10 dollars per minute phone calls in the 1980s&lt;p&gt;- I met friends through Facebook advertising for a boardgaming group (that I also ran on Facebook.)  I met people from way, way more backgrounds than otherwise possible&lt;p&gt;- I can &lt;i&gt;passively&lt;/i&gt; keep in touch with friends and easily get in touch if I&amp;#x27;m in the same area.&lt;p&gt;People &amp;quot;struggle&amp;quot; to find &amp;quot;long term value&amp;quot; because that&amp;#x27;s ironically the meta for upvotes on the contrarian SV Internet right now and we internalize those values far too easily.  Rest assured, value exists for most, if not all.</text></item><item><author>underbluewaters</author><text>I struggle to think of any institutions the VC&amp;#x2F;tech&amp;#x2F;internet era has produced with any long-term value. My assumption is that these companies go through a cyclical pattern of providing value and then destroying it once successful. That timescale also seems to be getting shorter.&lt;p&gt;Any going against that trend?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dleslie</author><text>One that seems incredibly important to many:&lt;p&gt;Small towns are no longer truly isolating. If you&amp;#x27;re an outsider, for whatever reason, in a small town it&amp;#x27;s no longer a sentence for loneliness, harassment and abuse. You will likely still experience harassment and abuse, but there is bound to be a community online that you can connect to in order to overcome loneliness.</text></comment>
<story><title>They can and will ruin everything you love</title><url>https://www.welcometohellworld.com/they-can-and-will-ruin-everything-you-love/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jbm</author><text>I try not to comment on stuff like this but I&amp;#x27;m going to make a one-time exception.&lt;p&gt;Ask Gen-Xers, specifically those who are not over-consuming news media and the harmful generalist social media (Reddit&amp;#x27;s default subs, Twitter&amp;#x27;s political echo chambers).  My life is way, way better now than it was prior to the internet, Google and half a dozen other services.&lt;p&gt;Even HN&amp;#x27;s favourite boogieman Facebook provided me with insane value.  For example:&lt;p&gt;- While I lived abroad, it provided an easy, passive way for me to keep in touch with my family.  Compare that to my parents&amp;#x27; desperate 10 dollars per minute phone calls in the 1980s&lt;p&gt;- I met friends through Facebook advertising for a boardgaming group (that I also ran on Facebook.)  I met people from way, way more backgrounds than otherwise possible&lt;p&gt;- I can &lt;i&gt;passively&lt;/i&gt; keep in touch with friends and easily get in touch if I&amp;#x27;m in the same area.&lt;p&gt;People &amp;quot;struggle&amp;quot; to find &amp;quot;long term value&amp;quot; because that&amp;#x27;s ironically the meta for upvotes on the contrarian SV Internet right now and we internalize those values far too easily.  Rest assured, value exists for most, if not all.</text></item><item><author>underbluewaters</author><text>I struggle to think of any institutions the VC&amp;#x2F;tech&amp;#x2F;internet era has produced with any long-term value. My assumption is that these companies go through a cyclical pattern of providing value and then destroying it once successful. That timescale also seems to be getting shorter.&lt;p&gt;Any going against that trend?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Capricorn2481</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been alive way before facebook and I can think of a number of ways they have made my life worse, not better. It&amp;#x27;s up to personal preference whether the trade-off is worth it, but to argue that facebook is a boogieman of ignorant people is really lame.</text></comment>