Do you miss when most web sites would only take down content that was irrelevant to the site, NSFW content in an SFW site, and illegal content? The time when saying certaint things on the internet while outside your work place and work hours would usually not get you fired. Of course, if you insulted your boss, you could get fired, but i'm not talking about that. Even if you got fired, you would not be left unhirable because something you said on the internet.

Back when porn sold better than anger, when there were few or no echo chambers, when people of all backgrounds and views got together on sites about topics they were interested on.

I barely experienced that time, but i miss it anyways.

I'm aware of the flaws of the internet of the past, it was not perfect, but it was better than what we have now.

What have changed is not the "internet"... but the generations, with their woldviews (Weltanschauungen) and value structures, of what is acceptable or not.

The "internet" I view it only as technologies for communication, and in such, they only get better.

I prefer the simplicity and variety the internet gives today. But I do miss when the internet was a little more "raw".
I am more bothered by how invasive the internet has become. Websites pretty much collect on everything about you to tailor ads to you and get you to spend money. Advertisers are also why sites like YouTube have gone real hardcore with their censorship. Sometimes I think television has less restrictions than YouTube does. It makes sense in the end, websites as big as sites like YouTube are expensive to run, maintain AND pay their content creators massive sums of money. That money has to come from somewhere.

Old internet definitely had its flaws too though. It was a lot less policed, so a lot of creepy and illegal stuff went on. Also, early internet did have its discourse, it just wasn't through massive social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and was through various forums and chat sites.

But as someone who grew up during the adolescence of the internet, from dial-up to flash games, I miss the old internet a lot, especially pre social media internet.
But it's not the internet itself that got worse but the culture and the way it is primarily funded.

I think it was a natural progression of the internet to turn into what it is today due to the sheer amount of people online. We are social creatures and we like to impress our "in group". And right now, with the amount of click bait articles, the amount of ads shoved in your face and how much people talk, people tend to get polarized but on an absolutely monstrous scale.
Back when I was a kid, Grandpa Jerry would scream about how the Millennials were ruining America and the government is actually run by a bunch of humanoid lizards. Nowadays, Grandpa Jerry has an entire platform to yell and an entire group of people who will listen.

But to conclude, I miss the old internet as someone misses hanging out with their friends around the Nintendo 64. I would just like to go back to a time where life was simple. No social media, no discourse, no invasive ads... Just me, my E-Machines and Fancy Pants Adventures on Miniclip

eh idk, I don't really use social media but i'm ok with how it is now. I think we just like it cus we're biased by nostalgia. It wasn't THAT much better, we had our fair share of echochambers like 4chan and resetera. People would get each other mad through baiting and trolling. Those old shock sites and videos were definitely not for the faint of heart either. I don't think i'd really say it was a better place. I'd be lying if I said I had no nostalgia for it though. I do miss how prevalent edgy humor was (when they were actually joking that is), the lack of corporatization, and flash games.

kinda. i more miss my youth, and how being young and naive affected my perspectives on various things. i could play f2p browser games, like Neopets, Kingdom of Loathing, or RuneScape, or even flash games like Bloons TD and AdventureQuest, for countless hours and never feel bored. going to YouTube felt like a magical journey to find entertaining videos, where i could abandon reality for a few minutes and either zone out to some Linkin Park or watch ShadowLeggy's Resident Evil Numa video for the umpteenth time.

i don't think the internet really changed, however it's being used differently and we have grown older, which can make it feel different. it's still a means to share and receive information through programs that can access it, but we now changed what we consider "information" to include a whole lot more reality and the internet is now used to provide that. there are still funny youtube videos and interesting games, but advertisements over presidential elections or requesting donations for good causes now pop up somewhere on your page. before that, news was located on Yahoo or squirreled away for the adults to see, but now it's the opposite and you have to go out of your way to avoid such topics and ads.

in short, the "old internet" is still the internet, but it wasn't mutilated by all the real that happens nowadays. it was once a haven to me, so that i could escape school or my responsibilities and enjoy the moment; now it's school that offers the escape, and the internet is what's full of reality's reminders...

mom! hang up! I am on the internet!


as old as I am, unless you are talking like 2400 baud, you are not talking about the old internet


_{shit, I got in the game late, and my first modem was the 14.4 ISA USR hotness}

whenever you reminisce about the past, make sure you're not wearing rose-tinted glasses

Ah yes, I remember the time I downloaded ransomware that locked my screen whenever I was connected to the Internet.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Ah yes, I remember the time I downloaded ransomware that locked my screen whenever I was connected to the Internet.

I remember fixing the computers of people like you! Coincidence? I think not!

Seriously though, the real thing I missed was the more cooperative environment. People were more willing to pick up something that required them donate resources? Creativitywise, it felt different. Then again, there's a real saturation of content now. You pretty much can't see all the common references people make, because there's just so many. 1990's Internet had small-world syndrome where if it was popular enough, most people online had seen it. This leads to an unconscious bias that it's normal to know some obscure thing which isn't remotely true! XD

The real feeling I get now is the stifling. The people that hate other people doing things they don't like, have really pushed back, after a time where you were kind of out of sight, thus out of mind. Like before in the 1960's, etc., something's going to have to give on the oppressive environment. Like, you can't even pay for legal porn without jumping through hoops or going through some questionable gatekeepers... who may get pulled at any time.

alphamule said:
I remember fixing the computers of people like you! Coincidence? I think not!

LOL, I fixed it myself in about 15 minutes. A quick search through my phone yielded a fix.
It wasn't even a real one I think, just a malicious program that sneaked into startup.