A retrospective of my time on the internet

Not a bad TFA but half of the author's issues would be solved by not using Windows (all the first bullet points he complains about are Microsoftisms).

Then half of the other half would be solved by taking some agency back: self-host stuff.

I can disconnect my LAN from my router --which I often do-- and be fully operational. I can dev. I've got servers, VMs, containers, etc. I can rip audio CDs I own, I can play my music offline (I also have Qobuz: they're not mutually exclusive), I can watch movies offline (I have a lot of family movies and I know a friend who's sailing the digital high-seas), I can model 3D parts to fix stuff around the house than I then 3D print --all fully done offline.

My car, which is an incredibly comfy high-end luxury car, has no Internet connection. It's got its own memory for music files: no need to be connected.

And I don't always leave home with my phone. My phone has got two apps installed: the mandatory state-related ID thing (sad but this one I need) and one app for my stocks broker 2FA. And that's it. I don't believe in smartphone apps. Heck, I don't believe in smartphones: tiny, inferior, computing devices that are really more spies than (underperforming) computers.

You don't need to be a victim of Microsoft and you're not forced to waste your life on a phone that spies on you.

I never had any Meta account: like is better without Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. I use Telegram: 1 billion monthly active users now. Sure, it's not that better but at least it's not from mediocre Meta.

Really: give Microsoft the middle finger once and for all. Give the Zuck the middle finger. And spend less time on your phone.

Install Linux. If you're anything of a techie, do yourself a favor and run a server at home, try to host some stuff on it: it's never been easier. Doesn't even need to be a real server with ECC: a NUC will do. Heck, a Pi may do (although I'd advice buying a used Xeon with ECC).

Life's already going to feel better.

And I'm no luddite: I've got a sweet setup, with desktops, laptops, servers, NUCs and Pi (lots of Pi) at home.

It's just that you don't have to be a slave to the big tech slavers.

I'll say it yet again. The Internet has become the very thing we used it to escape from.

The internet went to shit pretty much when Facebook went mainstream: internet stopped being some kind of alternative reality and started merging with regular reality… but worse.

It's entropy

I mean... if you look at the "Logging on today" section, they're using Chrome on Windows 10/11 and spend half the 17 steps dealing with those two things.

The first thing about the Internet is that you should know by now how to use it, at least as well as it knows how to use you. If not, you will be subjected to the Internet, not using it but being used. The web has evolved to a point where you need to remove a few layers before you find the actual web.

Don't use predatory social media. Don't use Chrome. Don't use Windows. Those three things will get you 90% of the way back. The rest is using the Fediverse, the small web, moving away from Google and subscription shit like Netflix and the rest of the business who trade with your time.

Learn to identify the things that are actively trying to profit off of you and don't use them, even if they're made to be extraordinarily convenient. The web you like is still there, it just takes some effort and know-how to get to.

Let's build a new one! We have the technology.

Most of the old internet could be restored with the right search engine and browser. Index all of the invasive BS to page 100 or the results, and put the interesting/relevant things up front. People might pay for it. You could do some of it with an extension.

Honestly, I also miss, sometimes, those days, when every website had a toolbar to install. I didn't have high expectations in those days. Now you see these billion dollar companies and you ask yourself what are those people doing there? Can't they afford at least one guy to do the bugs?

This resonates: the Internet was such an interesting place to grow up in, though my experience may be a little before the author’s.

I miss the niche bespoke websites and forum communities of the years past, but there’s nothing holding us back from creating and maintaining spaces like that these days, aside from spam and AI slop. Some are still out there.

The shift is mainly attributable to lowering the bar to access as cellphones with browsers came on: it became such a valuable consumer platform, rather than a place for creators, hobbyists, and those with a nerdy curiosity to congregate.

I hope the pendulum swings back the other way someday, but I fear ‘dead internet theory’ may be the current endpoint of least resistance.

Let me tell you that the Internet was really wild in the 70s. No need to log on or anything. It really was like the movie "War Games." If you had the right phone number, you were golden.

Authors first problem is "Using MS Windows". Its now solidly an advert and spam vehicle for other Microsoft shit nobody wants (like the 63 different things named Copilot). Seriously, use Linux. It is better in almost every way, other than extreme rootkit based games.

Next, use Firefox or Iceweasel with Ublock Origin and a useragent changer. Disable the spammy shit, but there's less of it.

For phones, run Graphene. Hands down.

Focus on Fediverse applications. Twitter -> Mastodon. Instagram -> Pixelfed. Reddit -> Lemmy. YouTube -> Peertube. Various chat -> Matrix (but its not good). Various search engines -> SearXNG.

And old stuff still exists. IRC is still a thing. Gopher still exists.

You can also run your discord chats, Facebook, Instagram, etm. Just run them through a web browser, and never let them see any apps.

Its easy to be all defeatist and shouty-at-clouds, and 'back in the old days'. They'll never come again. Instead, its all our jobs to MAKE the current place friendly to us and ours.

The "old web" is now darknets, like Tor or especially I2P. Everything fits. It requires some technical expertise to set up (particularly I2P). Slow downloads. No Javascript (usually disabled for safety reasons). Some content that will shock you at 30 exactly as the old internets content occasionally shocked you at 13. Intermittent connection. Anarchy. You can explore this world.

the internet i grew up with didn't exist yet

I think the biggest 'change' was when 'online' went from an activity you sat down in a specific spot in your house to enjoy for a couple of hours to something we have on our person 24/7 (sometimes via multiple devices). Less constant communication via SMS, Call, online messenger (on desktop) was very different from what we have now.

The “2026: Logging on today” section is way off the mark. It says that if you want to read the headlines, you turn on your Windows PC, get nagged for updates, etc.

No. You get your phone out of your pocket and it lights up instantly.

The Internet I Grew Up with Doesn't Exist Anymore

You're not alone. The internet we built doesn't exist anymore.

When I talk with fellow graybeards, the sentiment is universally the same: This isn't what we built. This wasn't the intent. This isn't what we worked so hard for. This isn't what was supposed to happen.

Easily 90% of the graybeards I know who were involved in the early days have largely given up on the internet. They use the new breed of "essential" technologies like smart phone apps to talk to their doctor, or online bill payments. But they don't have a lot of internet use because they're just not interested in it anymore.

They're also at the age when their interests are more focused on real-life things like families, and increasingly taking up the same real-life hobbies they used to make fun of online.

Maybe they're just burned out after dozens and dozens of hype cycles.† But for the most part, I think they've just given up hope.

† Just last night, I saw an article in a 1980's computer magazine about a company that came out with what we could call "AR" glasses to project a screen in you field of vision so you could compute on the go without a monitor. Nothing in technology is new anymore.

Not another one of these.

The connected, small community internet still exists.

The article comes off as kind of a curmudgeonly old man yelling at clouds.

More nostalgia bait… I hope one day I get downvote privileges for posts.

Let’s bring it back!

> Those of us who were cool used things like MSN Messenger, AIM, etc. to chat quickly without having to use an email.

Rubbish, MSN Messenger was never cool

amazing idea

Now it's time to move on.

> 2012: When Everything Started Changing

I have independently dated it to that same year.

Two things happened at least near that time: (1) mobile phones began to eclipse desktops as the primary devices for interaction online, and (2) social media started to wholesale adopt algorithmic feeds, infinite scroll, and hard-core addiction engineering.

The doom scrolling era started on or around 2012.

This was also when the looniest forms of "alt-right" and "woke warrior" stuff took over, and I blame algorithmic feeds for that. Rage bait and crazy divisive opinions maximize engagement, so that's what the algorithm is going to learn to boost. Algorithms amplified all the dumbest and craziest opinions across the entire political landscape and sidelined rational thought. Gotta keep people on the site/app. People don't slow down to look at good drivers. They slow down to stare at a wreck.

Along with algorithms, I think the mobile form factor itself is to blame. Small screen, slow typing, limited nerfed OS that is better for consumption than creation. It's generally a much more limited interaction than what a large screen PC with a real OS gives you, and a lot of the more information-rich early Internet doesn't translate well to a phone. It encourages brief, scattered, disjointed, low-information modes of communication or just consumption of "content."

I think that's another reason online discourse got dumb. Dumb opinions work well when interactions are brief and attention spans are short. You get memes, slogans, and sound bites, not long form nuanced deep discourse.

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