I don't get it, internet before was so open yet it had a lot of smart and in depth conversations inbetween the autistic randomness, it didn't need rules yet it worked out

Now you need a thousand rules to achieve less, needing tight and invite-only communities full of insecurity and fear of normies for conversations that are superficial and often part of culture wars/common morale

>>105862472 (OP)
Smaller communities are self-filtering and the critical mass where those who dislike the old ways can't split off and just do their own thing hadn't happened yet.
Either way it's gone and not coming back, best to just accept that. It was fun while it lasted and let's not pretend there wasn't a load of shit back then too.

>>105862472 (OP)

>>105862557
I feel like the "bad stuff" before was silly but honest, like people using cringey signatures in their posts like a forum, or like how emo culture was super gay but kinda fine?

>>105862584
I feel like nowadays even the memes are like the left pic
Ragecomics before were just playfully mocking some famous expression, now stuff like wojak is distorted beyond recognition, like they want to ENSURE the image is hostile and not taken lightly

>>105862648
>I feel like the "bad stuff" before was silly but honest, like people using cringey signatures in their posts like a forum, or like how emo culture was super gay but kinda fine?
I especially remember forum jannies going on powertrips, the good old "duplicate topic, closed" without a link to the other thread, and in general many forums being in group kinda deals.
Then in general it was all a lot more childish. Find if you wanted to have fun, but if you tried a more serious topic, chances were le ebin trolls would annoy you until you either joined them or gave up. That may have been less of a problem because we were more likely to be young or children, but it's not bad to have overcome the "le sex" phase.
Also it was really hard to find anything as everyone was far more insular.
And the fucking internet, always something would break, take ages to load, you'd open a video and leave the room to let it buffer, you'd boot the pc and leave the room to boot etc.
I'm not saying those times were worse or better, just that it's important we don't forget there were a lot of bad things about it too.

>>105862864
The only thing that bad is that it's gone and now coons like you can make stuff up.

>>105862883
You've never been there anon, but sure tell me about the sovl of frutiger aero as if vista wasn't utter dogshit.

>>105862900
Back then vista wasn't a thing.

>>105862883
Don't derail my thread by answering in my place...

>>105862864
Ah I remember the forum jannies part, but these things still exist in discord servers, same thing as the duplicate topic in stack overflow
I feel like those problems never ceased to exist, but newer ones were added on top of them, like how both of those things have a more political nature today
Same thing about the childishness, it's still there but now it's 100% culture wars instead of for fun trolling

>>105862941
Also, it's like the internet culture didn't mature, it became rotten
All the old issues are there with newer ones on top
The old issues feel more tolerable in comparison looking that way, it's way easier to laugh at untargetted for fun trolling over targetted for "my side" against "the evil side" trolling

>>105862941
>Ah I remember the forum jannies part, but these things still exist in discord servers, same thing as the duplicate topic in stack overflow
That's possible, I'm not really using discord other than one server with IRL people so I wouldn't know. Stack overflow is a good example, it felt like the last bastions of that old forum mindset, though it's dying too now.
>I feel like those problems never ceased to exist, but newer ones were added on top of them, like how both of those things have a more political nature today
You're not going to hear counterarguments against the politicization from me, it's something I majorly hate about the modern internet. You have culture war shit everywhere, it's impossible to have a conversation without someone popping in trying to make it about their spiritual war bs.
>Same thing about the childishness, it's still there but now it's 100% culture wars instead of for fun trolling
I'd say that's something else than childishness, like the nature of ragecomics and stuff was very much childish, the culture war is some other beast. No idea what to call it, but it's weird.

>>105863495
Ragecomics was a teenager, culture wars is a manchild
What I feel about stuff like frutiger aero that you mentioned to the other anon, is that those things while a little bad, in comparison they were better than what we have now
It was a little soulless already, having everything glass and clean, but after flat design I feel like I was too harsh on it

>>105863723
>while a little bad, in comparison they were better than what we have now
I'm not sure about that. That visual styling is fine on modern hardware, but back then it really had performance hits imo. The main reason I brought that up is because there's some zoomer trend to be nostalgic for that time right now, feels weird that what I felt like was "new" is "good old days" to them.
In your defense, technology back then (including design) had a sense of whimsy and hope for the future, these days it's all very corporate and rationalized.
>It was a little soulless already, having everything glass and clean, but after flat design I feel like I was too harsh on it
The big thing was that everything didn't look the same. Sure you had winamp and emule that had that typical bubble design, but also plenty of 95 looking programs that were far more flat and some inbetween. The important part is that that homogeneity we have now gets boring faster I guess.

The general rule of thumb as it goes with new paradigms is

Discovery --> Investigation --> Maturation --> Consolidation --> Iteration

Essentially, in the wild west days anything goes because there's no framework by which to judge, so solutions are necessarily ad hoc: What is adopted is what works. Those attracted to the space/tech are there because it genuinely interests them: They are fueled by discovery of this exciting thing, and all the possibilities it holds. As time goes on, the medium matures and develops a culture of its own. Frameworks arise and are adopted. This is generally when things approach their zenith, the system is more orderly but still agile. Afterwards, everything is centralized for efficiency and ease of control. This is an invariable process and is generally unavoidable. Afterwards is when you get to "progress," in which each day seems to cheapen and/or ironically worsen what just years ago functioned with (basically) no oversight at all.

It will happen to whatever new paradigm arises after the internet, too, just like it happened with every industry prior to it. What a shame.

>>105863777
>but also plenty of 95 looking programs that were far more flat and some inbetween
Sure, I remember those grey soulless programs too, in a certain way we tend to remember more the good stuff than the bad parts of it
But on the other hand, it feels like cool design was encouraged and even done by mainstream corporations, while now the norm is to make things boring
Homogeneity is terrible, every program looks the same now like you mentioned!

>>105862472 (OP)
Its because newfags that try to show up and change the existing culture to anything deserve the wood chipper. And I mean anything. Not just web forums.

>>105862941
>Don't derail my thread by answering in my place...
Stay butt hurt, you chumpy boy! ;p

You can't tell anyone what to do!

>>105863955
You bratty girl!!1 This is my thread >:(

>>105864172
heres a (you)

>>105864198
Thanks ^_^

>>105862472 (OP)
Easy. In the early days of the internet the mere fact that you accessed it meant that you were probably not a normie, so most people have already been pre-filtered. This gradually changed with access becoming easier and then you saw a dramatic rise in normiedom when smartphones and widely available Wifi happened. No amount of rules will get the genie back into the bottle. The best you can hope for is to set up some gated community on the web and then try and balance controlling new users vs not letting unser interaction dry up. Water the garden, but don't drown it.

>>105862472 (OP)
Third world Americans have ruined the internet. Third world US is worst what has happened to internet. Also anons using Windows, macOS and other proprietary shit supporting LGBT. They are anti-white, anti-Linux, anti-freespeech etc. They are cuck_slaves.

>>105867140
saaar US libtard gay has ruined internets! not us brahmin sofisticated internet users from delhi's trashpile hive!

>>105867140
>>105867408
Culture wars have ruined both the internet and your personalities

>>105862472 (OP)
Internet had tons of rules back then. Had to click "Exit" if you were under 18. Had to delete roms after 24 hours. Had to share a/s/l when asked.

>>105867452
>had to click exit if you were under 18
Kek

One thing I rarely see talked about is how extreme the internet was back then. The fake shit you hear about "The Darkweb" was all over, in public, except a lot of the time it was real. I remember coming across people, forums and sites showing the kind of shit that would make for hours long conspiracy videos on youtube nowadays.

>>105867489
Imagine someone who lived in a walled garden like discord servers that you can't even post memes on general or anime girls, falling for the goatse site

>>105867489
>the kind of shit that would make for hours long conspiracy videos on youtube nowadays
Reminds me /x/ was insufferable for a while because of some retard who would make videos dressed as a school boy
It was probably some weird art project but there were 2h long videos like he was Hitler or satan himself

>>105867500
>>105867518

One personal example I have is that I was super young in the early 90s and barely knew English. This one guy at an arcade I would hang out at was a lvl 99 neckbeard, in his early 20s. He had a laptop he'd carry around everywhere and show off to the kids.

I don't remember how I found out about it but apparently the guy was using local prostitute services online. He had the password and site list in a floppy he gave me from a bunch of old crap he was going to throw away.

Anyways, I opened the site and there were ads for girls, just text though. There were at least 3 sites on the floppy but the passwords only worked on 2 sites. It was always shit like that.

>>105867529
Kek, nowadays it would appear in a 3h video essay about a dark web site where they are selling women

>>105867500
not every discord server was made equal
the best fun ive had online was early this year in a server with 25-30 people doing some irl ish shitposting