alt Hacker NewsBut to be more broad I'll present you the romantic version which is at least partly true. I miss that.
It used to feel like the internet was a place you went to explore and learn. It was harder to use and navigate, so most ordinary people did not spend much time there. Back then, a lot of people believed it would make the world better because everyone could access information and educate themselves.
That optimism did not survive contact with reality. Today you can carry essentially all human knowledge in your pocket, yet much of the internet is funneled through a handful of corporations whose business model is advertising and attention. Instead of helping people discover things, the dominant platforms optimize for keeping you scrolling with outrage, dopamine hits, and low value content. Worst thing is of course politics which moved in here.
The joy of exploring is done, but honestly I think that it atleast partly that the og users got older. Hackernews somehow reminding me the "old Internet", somehow alike people with desire to explore and have honest discussion on genuinely interesting topic.
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Bring back webrings!
What makes you think that great stuff still doesn't exist, but you're the one stuck in those 5 corporations bubble that makes it impossible for you to find it?
There's still great stuff out there, it's still as hard to find and navigate as it has always been. It's still as shady and as illegal (if you care about copyright) as it has always been. Most people still don't bother to do it, you just became a part of that category.
Here, let me try snapping you out of that bubble a little bit and make you one of the today's lucky ten thousand: find a category that interests you on fmhy(.)net (SFW, I promise), see how long it takes you to spot something you had no idea existed outside your bubble.