Today's internet is way worse than the old internet.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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I feel the opposite. I’m “C-64 dial up BBS” years old. I’m far, far more concerned with the internet today. It’s become destructive on so many levels. The corporatocracy takeover, the enstupidification, AI, troll farms, bots, outright lies, echo chambers willfully and ignorantly forming realities outside of objective truth…
The modern internet is an awful conflagration that everyone is trying to manipulate and control while throwing more fuel on it in an attempt to profit from it.
Goatse is nothing compared the dumpster fire that’s happening.
I’m not fine with it at all.
I’m that many years old too… 1970 represent!
I liked it better when it was just random people coming together to talk about whatever random shit you were into. It felt so much more inclusive. Like no matter how weird your hobby was, somebody out there was into it as well… or sharing very funny stories like the creation of overly engineered toasters. Or putting a camera on a coffee pot to check if there was fresh coffee. Or the stories of the BOFH.
Now it’s too controlled, monetized, enshittified, homogenized, etc. It’s not about people connecting anymore or creating content that people actually want and learn from. With all the AI generated bullshit, it’s likely not even created by people anymore. At least with goatse, tub girl, or lemon party you knew that was actual people… not sure if that’s better or worse actually. But somebody created it for others to “enjoy”… well experience might be a better word here. But you get the idea. It was people coming together because they wanted to. They enjoyed it. Now it’s all scams, rage-bait, and algorithms created to drive engagement. It’s almost like it isn’t fun anymore.
But there are places that still remind me of the old internet. Lemmy for example. It’s not exactly the same but it shares its DNA.
It certainly was more egalitarian. Geocities or MySpace were kinda examples. Anyone could make their own space, often for free.
Most content today is crap, and the rest is someone stealing or reacting to that crap, ad nauseam. Though TBF if anyone remembers the early days of youtube or other platforms it was full of stupid stuff too, but it was “lookit me, lol!” for likes rather than ad-riddled garbage that somehow people expect to be taken seriously for.
Goatse or 2g1c was our clickbait, and nobody tried to sell you anything or make it any more than it was. It was garbage and we knew it.
Agreed. Been on FIDO, been on BITNET before I went on the internet - way before the web. Way before the eternal September. People today cannot even start to imagine how the net was back then. Forget "six degrees", maximum distance was maybe three. You basically knew everyone, or you knew someone who did.
Old internet:
- Lots of fun places to visit
- "So, first I visit thisite, then click that other link, then click the 3rd link on the right from the bottom up"
- Oh fuck, no, don't go in THERE
- Hey, another toolbar for my IE toolbar collection!
- Wait, what was that site again?
- Ugh, why won't this image load?
- No mom, I'm not keeping the phone line busy!
- One login for this forum, another for that forum, another for that other forum...
- Wow, email sure is neat! Instant messaging with anyone in the world!
- weird noises when the mouse hovers certain elements
- BOOBIES!
Current internet:
- tiktok, instagram, google, facebook, amazon
- ANIMATED BOOBIES!
I'm proud to not use any of those current products. Except for google because of google login.
Can I ask what you use instead of youtube?
Well shit. I guess I don't use their search engine.
I'm really confused what this could be referring to.
Because the folks who've been around the longest and remember the early days of the Internet are currently in utter dismay over how their fun international sandbox has become a Black Mirror-esque horror show, while everyone else seems to just shrug and obediently upload their face scans so they can watch AI videos of uncanny-valley cats playing cruel pranks on facsimiles of political figures in-between unskippable ads for applying to be an ICE agent under promises that it'll be like COD but in your own backyard with living, breathing brown people.
Spot fucking on. The people who’ve watched it grow then wither are the most bitter because we saw what it could have become
I'll never forget John C. Dvorak's 2006 article from PC Mag, where he argued that we were living in the Golden Age of the Internet, and to enjoy it while it lasts, before it ends up overcommercialized like what happened to radio. I only half believed it at the time, but I see now that he was 100% spot on with that prediction. (Snippet here; can't find a scan of the entire article.)
I'm also clueless and don't understand what the OP is talking about - who is having a mental breakdown and why? And aren't the millennials who are the only tech and internet literate generation exactly the people having a mental breakdown over the way the internet is going? I'm so confused, I need more context.
I've been on since BBS's , I was just starting to understand it a little then it expanded to browsers, then there was the FTP's to share pirated software, ICQ to meet people from all over the world it was good.
Then it went to shit, the only good thing is that torrents have been keeping my media free.
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I'd rather accidentally stumple onto pain olympics or lemon party than accidentally stumble into a black mirror episode
I remember when I got my first 4800baud modem upgrade from my 2400baud modem. So I could connect to my friend's house who had a sick BBS server.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Saddam Hussein's hanging. BME pain olympics. A midget in a ET suit having sex with a giant spider. Meatspin. All these things will be lost, like tears in the rain.
Time to fry.
Gadafi getting knife fucked and killed in that crowd was a big one too.
I find it interesting because the BME Pain Olympics was mostly done with plasticine and the like for shock value
I create performance art with my dick which isn't gore (I'm not going to hurt my dick!) and I'm often accused of using AI
People are simultaneously skeptical and also ridiculously credulous, depending on what they want to believe
Reads username: FistingEnthusiast
I guess that checks out
You also never clicked an advert or used your real name.
Please tell me that people aren't clicking ads...
Enough are doing it that it's still profitable. Last estimates I saw were 10% who saw an ad clicked one, and 10% of those who clicked bought what they saw
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Anyone remember when CompuServe had these chatrooms or channels that were basically collaboration websites before Geocities blew up? I liked those.
KennyLauderdale! I follow him on Youtube and Bluesky, he's made some excellent videos about anime and other Japanese shows!
Man, I’ve been on the “internet” since before it had pictures or videos or sound . When each “website” was a different phone number, and if more than a few people were visiting it, you had to wait and call back later. Just to read in green (or amber) text on a black screen, someone’s comments on some old post, and weeks & weeks of comment threads.
It was amazing.
Am I upset about the state of the internet today? Not really. It’s evolving, getting worse in some ways, better in others. I’m still interested to see what it grows into. I have my own hopes as to what it will become, but I’m sure I’ll be surprised at the direction it takes.
Am I upset about the state of the internet today? Not really.
You somehow witnessed corporate interests encircle and subvert the internet's wonderful idyllic culture into the torment nexus of capitalist control and propaganda and you're not upset?
We also have witnessed humans rebel against that and create a new decentralized internet that we are currently using
Idk i have faith in weird and creative people who refuse to follow rules
Idk i have faith in weird and creative people who refuse to follow rules
Ramen, let us be blessed by his noodley appendages.
Well, a legion of bots ended the new Digg beta test despite their best efforts. It came as a surprise to the company.
It was really sudden! I was on that version of Digg (what was it, the 4th?) and one day I opened the page and it was just a message that they were laying off a bunch of people and shutting the site down to try to figure out what to do about all the bots. All the users, all their communities, all their posts and comments, gone. I think they aren't going to be able to do anything without a mechanism for strong trust, and a revocable one. The most trustworthy account in the world could start spewing slop around at any moment.
Ah well. It had many many fewer users than Lemmy anyway!
“…the AOL days…”
That funny feeling when AOL users consider themselves the experienced, wisened ones.
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If you aren't horrified by what's happening to Iran right now then you're an empathy deficient and that comes with a separate set of problems.
I'm 40, and absolutely remember the old internet. But the news traumatizes me so consistently lately I find myself crying every day.
I don't know the context for this microblog, but I don't think whats happening in Iran is what he was thinking of when he said "digital horrors".
I remember seeing footage of bombings from the Bosnian war in the 90's. Well before digital video on the internet was popular, it was just on cable TV.
I don't know Lauderdale personally, but he has a funny YouTube channel and seems cool enough that I'm gonna hold off on judging this without context.
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me at 11, hanging out in public chat rooms with Neonazis, pedos, and scientologists debating the Hubble deep field without knowing what any of those things are but just happy to be included.
Public chatrooms were everywhere too. It was just the default, anywhere you went. AOL, yahoo games, random websites for no reason.
Even as late as Starcraft 2 (so 2010-), you'd open the game and immediately be dropped into a giant public chatroom on the home screen with everyone else currently playing.
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Budd Dwyer
I've been around since 94. It was never this bad.
The only thing that continually surprises me about the internet is how young y'all are.
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I was watching my own foot surgery the other day (local anesthetic) and even the surgeon's assistant had to cringe a bit at a certain spot while I was happily watching. She said most patients have to look away during these procedures but after growing up with unrestricted access to the internet and an at times unhealthy amount of curiosity I've seen it all. Should I have watched those isis beheading videos? Probably not. The production value was insane though.
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i remember going to ogrish.com and rotten.com and thinking "wow the internet is fucking great," and trolling people on AIM chat before anyone called it "trolling." then i grew up
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