Fed up with the state of the internet

[elmo]

I'm starting to get rather fed uo with the current state of the internet. Could be nostalgia from the 90's, but it seems that everything online is being monetized, or a front for data gathering of user information. If your not paying for a product, you are the product, i.e. gmail, Facebook and so on.

I miss being able to go to a webpage, without todays monitoring and tracking of users. Its possible to block tracking to some extent, but that sometimes leads to pages not working properly.

Been trying to get back on IRC, but most of the old places have died out. Took a look at the Gemini protocol, but its still lacking. Usenet seems to be filled with pirated material.

Are there any options I am forgetting that i should check out?

 

[Floris]

Oh wow, elmo! It has been a while.

Yep, the good old days of just going to a site for the content seem to be over. Thankfully we still have the forums and your nearly 900 posts here somewhere .. without ads, and we don't sell your data. Thankfully third-party cookies can be blocked without affecting the functionality of the forums.

But it's true, just browsing news to get the latest, feels like you're watching the content advertisers want to push, with whatever agenda they have. I try not to let it get to me.

And on Facebook and social media, I post what I want to post and don't bother much with the content of others. Those great people who I follow because they're fun, they're now discussing politics and extreme opinions and whatnot. And it's like some robot chatting without the conversation having any weight anymore. I don't read it anymore.

I am on Discord.gg/floris, because that way I have some control over the content ~ and because it's where the daily activities are. If only we still had ircnet and vbirc without the way things are these days. The reason I am sticking to holding on to the forums is because it's a MySQL db fump that I can download, it's self-hosted. And even if it's a handful of people posting daily. It's not me sharing my data with Discord or Twitter for analytics to give me better ads or provide pay-to-unlock features/services. Which feels pretty good.

With the forum, if we get suspended we can switch host. With Discord if we get suspended we lose everything. Members and all content. Basically.

But, I try to live in the moment, and if a service does things that really bother me on a daily basis then I stop using it.

I am not going to hide in a corner of the Internet though on a social service that I have to try and force my friends to use just to attempt to avoid ads and to stick it to the man. or something But I try to be cautious enough about what I do on these services and I try not to let it get to me that I think the state of today's world is making me roll my eyes and question my existence.

I value the chats I have with those who I care about. If that upsets an advertiser or a service, shrug.. that's their issue, not mine.

ANYWAY, it's good to see you! I do hope all is well.

 

[elmo]

It has indeed been a while.

Dont get me wrong, I'm on several of the largest social media sites, but I only use it to keep in touch with friends. On some sites I just lurk and read a few discussions.

Guess I'm just frustrated with the current state of things and constant squeeze for profit and user data.

 

[Floris]

It has indeed been a while.

Dont get me wrong, I'm on several of the largest social media sites, but I only use it to keep in touch with friends. On some sites I just lurk and read a few discussions.

Guess I'm just frustrated with the current state of things and constant squeeze for profit and user data.

It's quite unfortunate indeed. Good to see you again, and have fun chatting with us here.

 

[elmo]

Found a article that sums up things nicely: Enshittification

 

[Floris]

That's quite a read, I will try to find time for that!

 

[elmo]

Quite long, uses tiktok as an example but the concept can be applied to everything online.

Tl;dr: first cater to users, build a base. Second: cater to business/advertising. Finally cater to investors and squeeze profits

 

[Floris]

Quite a few companies are pretty fed up with Reddit's changes, I've seen a few. But I don't think the black out is going to do much realistic damage, just perceived community attention.

 

[elmo]

I think a blackout is just posturing. As long as people still use the site it will keep its plan and still block API calls.

Guess they will make the same mistakes digg did and eventually die off and/or become irrelevant.

With all the talk about people leaving reddit i see alot of talk about federated sites/services like Mastodon as a twitter replacement and Lemmy as a reddit replacement. Interesting to see if any of them will reach a critical mass of users.

The idea of a federated community is interesting atleast, where one moves away from a monolithic service to a multitude of more specialized communities that share frameworks.

 

[Floris]

yeah. when digg changed, we walked away. I still had a friend who recently showed me they still check it out, I was like, but it's just a WYSIWYG version of an RSS feed .. cluttered with ads?