Quote:
Originally Posted by Tube Ace
(Post 22880487)
wait.. what?
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I don't know if this is what that poster is saying (and didn't watch the video) but I sometimes think thinking about 'the good old days' is just a sign of getting old.
I don't mean it about you, I'm talking about myself. I think back on stuff all the time (and wish I didn't so much).
I loved the internet of 20-25 years ago, I think it had more character, more interesting/weird/anarchic things going on, more creativity and innovation and I 'met' some great people (this can happen in any era, but I think it was more of a big deal to 'meet' people from other countries then, when the net was still relatively new and there were far fewer people online).
I often think about those days, and even wish I could go back sometimes, but maybe it's just because it was new to me, and everything new is more exciting and interesting.
The centralization around just a handful of mega platforms that most people spend most of their time on is a serious and major leap backwards though, alongside the constant tracking and other privacy violations.
I remember in 1996-98 scares about "cookies", which were nothing compared to today, and these days people just upload their lives and biodata, minute by minute activities, and carry around a device that can recognize their face, voice and prints, listen to their conversations and track their position/movements down to the square yard.
I think web forums died not because of that device though, but simply because as people spent more time on Youtube and FB and other emerging sites, they inevitably spent less time on their old forums. And with fewer posts, there's less reason for other people to use the forum as often, and it becomes a vicious circle.
Web forums helped to kill off newsgroups 20 years ago though, so maybe the golden age of the internet was the mid 1990s before the Web had really taken over, and it was still used by relatively few enthusiasts.
Either way, I think whenever the golden age was, if any, it ended 5-10 years ago when the net was everywhere and became something everyone just took for granted as a part of regular life.
TL;DR: In the golden age people read long posts. :)
