Remember when someone would accidentally go to Whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov?
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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Smartphones are the most useful thing ever day-to-day... So I want to keep those, like keep all the text and call and email stuff, keep the games I guess, but somehow also go back to the days when the Internet was something to peruse for an hour or so a day on the computer.
The first time I used the internet it was in a college computer room where I did not attend classes. Because, at one time, the internet was only on college campuses. I'm almost as old as Grandpa now.
the biggest mistake was selling it to merchants
I am no longer ready for the Internet.
The best and worst things about computing was bringing it to the masses.
The Internet was for anyone!
(Stares 1000 yards away)
...But it should never have been for everyone...
People with poor reasoning and critical thinking ought to stay off, but alas, email ate mail and now, it’s SPAM for years.
I miss lettering.
The idea that the AOL nobheads would just sit there inside their walled garden was hilarious.
In hindsight, the internet gradually evolved back into walled gardens by some measure.
Sure it's "open" compared to the old walled gardens of yore, but seeing as a small handful of large companies now make up the vast majority of non-ai internet traffic, we arguably went full circle.
I remember before the word ‘internet’ existed. I remember when people were happy enough conducting their own business on their own computer. Alone.
I’m sure the mere idea shatters your soul.
That’s the world we grew up in. A lab of Apple IIs, with no network connection (not even to each other!). and all we had was 5.25” floppies. The horror!
AST Research 286 12Mhz. MS-DOS. Two phone line BBS I ran for a summer--Tiger in the Dark. That was my introduction to connected computing.
What was that? 90? 91? AST With a 286/SX 12.5MHz on a maybe 2800 baud modem? Running double? Tiger BBS? (Hee!) oh my God, those were the days…
Mad respek, buddy
I remember my first data cable. I plugged two computers directly into each other, and it was like magic; didn't even need a floppy disk to transfer data! Then the LAN games…
Nowadays most games on Steam will actually shit themselves if you try to connect to a local IP address. No, I don't want to use the online cloud server; let me peer to peer or local host, please.
I played Warcraft 2 with a 14.4 modem dialing directly to my friend’s modem across town in 1996.
It was novel and kinda fun to tell my mom what we were doing, but it was so slow that we never bothered again. The taste led to wanting to go nuts when broadband hit, whcih coincided with going to college and getting on a T1 line.
Right before Napster killed all college network speeds.
Steam itself is cool in the way it'll let you use the lan to transfer files between pcs.
Then the LAN games…
"C'mon let's plug in and do a 6x2 comp-stomp on StarCraft!"
(Edit: changed the ratio, because if I recall Starcraft maxed at 8 players lol)
Look, I'm not going to say I like reading microfiche but things started going to shit when we stopped microfiching things and started depending on magnets to remember for us.
I have a two inch floppy but it’s thick.
2 inches long 12 inches thick, just the way the ladies like it.
Like a cheese wheel. You might not touch bottom, but you'll stretch out the sides.
I am on a yearly plan for data and calls. (Not sure why. If there is an unlimited plan in Australia, let me know)
I used up my data a month early. These past few weeks with no data, and only accessing the internet at home has been a treat. Been reading alot more. Am about half way through Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.
Limited Data? You guys living in 2005?
Notoriously yes, as far as telecomms are concerned.
To me it all went went to shit with the advent of social media, who in the hell thought it would be a good idea to give people a platform? Before that internet was an interesting if weird place to be.
People still made places for themselves, but it took some effort, and every personal site ended up being a reflection of the person who made it and their skills.
I even thought social media was brilliant when it came to say, earlier MySpace.
Why? Easy way to keep in touch with people all at the same time. "Oh look what's going on in so-and-so's life", instead of hoping they'll stumble on your blog lol.
Even early Facebook was kinda like this. Network of friends and family. Chronological order. Simple, but not exploitative enough.
Then, yeah, I think it all went dumpster-fire when the incentive was "How many complete strangers can I get to follow my hot takes?" and adding rage-based prioritizing instead of chronological, and whatever the hell the "For you" section is. (When I rarely pop on FB with TOR, it's all just NSFW thot content...that I cannot disable.)
When it all became about following celebrities and being all "notice me senpai!" on their feeds.
...Putting bad companies on blast can stay though. A platform to publicly shame bastards like airlines and politicians is/was a feature. Lol
I loved going to the computer lab. Someone would always appear at your shoulder to ask if you wanted to play Quake or Red Alert, which is way better than the reasons my boss has for hovering at my shoulder.
Nah. What the problem was the whole "it's the internet, it's not real. Get off it. Etc etc." The truth is the internet is as real as you and me. The things we say and do are real.
We should've taken it more serious. Not let these hate groups form online. It was the wild west and people pussy footed around about taming it.
Now it's a cancer riddled mess with pockets of safety, but the rest is no man's land.
The "marketplace of ideas" in action.
Also, in my opinion, Tumblr losing basically every single raid war they got into with 4chan around 2012-2013 has a lot to do with the state of social media today.
Tits or GTFO except now anon is POTUS.
That was always a doomed battle. How do you publically shame a group of people with no identities and no shame? The more tumblr cared the more 4chan won.
Fucking feel so burnt by Tumblr losing porn. I legit only got Tumblr cause of the porn, and it went and got all righteous like a month or so after.
Could still do that on your free time