i think we need Cracked-style articles back. desperately. or like, a guy doing a weird thing and writing a piece on it. sites like those are declining faster than the glaciers.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    Old internet lacked the following, which made it better:

    • Scrolling shenanigans (fixed scrolling points, pointless animation and content position that changes with scrolling)
    • Navigating pages that doesn’t create a history for you to easily back-forward them
    • Everything can be easily monetized
    • Using javascript for page layout that could be done with plain html
    • The worst kind of intrusive ads, notifications and cookies
    • Everything looks samey and “professional”
    • Centralization
    • Surgically precise SEO

    Content wise, I think points 3, 6 and 7 are the main reasons why we “don’t have as much interesting content”. Too much focus on looking professional, on being marketable, on being profitable. 7, centralization, is how facebook, reddit and others pretty much killed several smaller forums

    I love that neocities.org exists, you can make your own website and have a domain there for free, much like the old days of geocities. The problem is that your content won’t be found unless you advertise it elsewhere.

    In a way, I suspect the centralized corporate internet is much like the difference between humans living in several, sparsely populated villages, where things and people feel more “connected”, vs living in large urban sprawls, where you’re surrounded by people and stuff, but hardly interact or care about most of it.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Too much focus on looking professional, on being marketable, on being profitable.

      So you don’t like SEO…

      your content won’t be found unless you advertise it elsewhere.

      So you actually don’t care about SEO, but want better content?

      I don’t hear anything about you creating content. The issue is, content creators make more money with SEO and monetization. That’s why they do it. If you don’t pay, they don’t care what you want.

      Don’t you remember that most Geocities sites sucked and were hard to navigate? Every other page said “under construction”. You are currently on a network that has much better content and interaction than those sites.

      Post more if you want more content.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        I don’t hear anything about you creating content.

        Oh look, it’s the “you can’t complain about X if you don’t do X” fallacy! It’s a cheap ad hominem, if I’m not mistaken. I have created and freely shared a number of 3D files for printing under a different handle, which you may argue isn’t “content”, I have also answered several questions on AskGodot, again on a different handle, before the site overhaul. I could go on, but that’s beside the point, because your phrase is just an attempt in bad faith to derail the discussion and shut down my voice because I “don’t count”, because I “don’t create content”.

        content creators make more money with SEO and monetization

        Which, allow me to point again to one of my complaints about the current internet: Everything can be easily monetized. The easier it is to get money creating “content”, the more it becomes a flood race for the money.

        You are currently on a network that has much better content and interaction than those sites.

        True to a certain extent. The interaction on some of the current sites feel like a checklist of dark patterns. I also have to wade through a continually growing swamp of auto-generated shit, whether AI or not, to find good stuff. Such prevalence of low quality content decreases the likelihood of me even wanting to get out of my “comfort bubble” of known places and creators.

        Post more if you want more content.

        This makes no sense.