i think we need Cracked-style articles back. desperately. or like, a guy doing a weird thing and writing a piece on it. sites like those are declining faster than the glaciers.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 years ago

    A lot of it boils down to the users. Personally, I miss when the internet mostly consisted of us nerds.

    Back in 1995 when I first got online, the web was very much a nerd domain. You needed a certain level of computer knowledge to get online, which really acted as a filter. It meant that most of us shared a certain level of understanding and the drive to use such a medium. We disagreed on Star Trek and Star Wars, but to the outside world, we were ALL nerds. Back then, the average person didn’t even think of going online.

    These days, even the most tech illiterate can get online. In fact, they don’t even think about it; it’s that integrated in their daily life.

    While growth also gave us nice things like large forums, web shopping, YouTube, etc… by and large I think we’d be better off if this was still a nerd domain.

    I really miss those days.

    • lars@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      2 years ago

      Heads up: Lemmy will either get less popular or more popular over time. Neither is ideal.

      And while it never feels like it when you say it, but these are [going to be] the good ol’ days.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 years ago

    A lot of informational content is now in video format instead of text/photos. I can barely understand their poor English in those videos.

    • Dave.@aussie.zone
      2·
      2 years ago

      I can read and skim documents for salient details at 500 - 800 words per minute.

      And then someone links me to a twelve minute video on YouTube where 800 words are spoken in total , 300 of those words are “um,so”, and all we’re looking at is either the narrator , or possibly a static slide with a few paragraphs on it… and also an inset of the narrator, narrating.

    • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      Exactly this! My hearing problems don’t help the matter at all. Also they’re painfully slow - I read really fast and I rarely need a full intro to something, I usually hunt for a single piece of information in a whole article. Videos are stupid.

        • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
          1·
          2 years ago

          So today we’re going to learn how to tie a shoe. I like tying shoes, I tie a lot of shoes and I think other people tie shoes too, so I’m doing a video on tying shoes.

          Without further ado, let’s jump right in.

          So tying shoes is really important. Lots of people tie shoes every day and so it’s something that you need to know. So in this video we’re going to talk about tying shoes. If you want to learn how tie shoes you’re in the right place! We’re talking about tying shoes.

          So without further ado, let’s jump right in.

          So in this video we’re going to talk about tying shoes … [5 more minutes of talking without actually giving any information whatsoever]

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
    0·
    2 years ago

    I miss the simplicity and the focus on the information due to the technical limitations.

    Websites just had the information, well presented. None of that blog spam with a massive story on how error code -21 could suck and seriously impact your business and that you should hire professionals. But anyway here’s a command copied from a 10 year old StackOverflow answer that hasn’t worked for 5 years and isn’t actually related to what you were Googling at all, but now you’ve viewed 3 advert videos, scrolled through 10 sponsored ads and closed 2 popups. Here’s the next article on error -22.

    Also, downloads were “here’s the link to it on our FTP server”, none of that guess which download button is the real one, waiting 30 seconds for the download to prepare and having to sign up for faster download speeds.

  • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    I’ve done a lot to make the web somewhat usable again via extensions and workarounds, so maybe that’s why I’m not as frustrated as others.

    I do use Linux, GrapheneOS, the terminal, and a lot of various tools to give me a far more minimal experience on the web by default. Ublock with paywall block filter lists, JavaScript off by default, duckduckgo lite search, and privacy redirect extensions shut out most of the noise. I even have sponsor block cut out mentions of sponsors on YouTube videos. So for the most part I just get pure content.

    I do miss the culture behind the old web when people were more optimistic and experimental with what they would do with their websites, or just more minimal in their approach cuz they kind of had to.

    I do miss the prevalence of old school discussion forums, and I’ll always prefer IRC, XMPP, or Matrix over platforms like Discord.

    The Fediverse, especially Lemmy, is a welcome breath of fresh air though. So the modern web isn’t all bad.