I'm 32, I remember using the internet before google was a thing, discovering flashy websites, hanging out on all kinds of internet forums and chatrooms, ebaums world, MySpace, new grounds... I rember when YouTube was just starting off and it was exploding with all kinds of content.
I joined Facebook in 2005, I remember when it was the talk of the town, it used to actually kind of be decent, all the content was from actual real world peers.
I remember when pages became a thing, and you could like certain topics, and then eventually it unfolded into something enterely different, I remember when it became New Facebook, and there became a chatbar. And then eventually it became a cespool of garbage.
I remember when reddit was at it's prime, I discovered it in 2011, I spent hours scrolling and engaging in discussion. The content was always new and original, every day on Reddit my mind got blown by something, this is before all the algorithms, and when upvotes and down votes actually dictated where your post would be jn the feed. You could litterally refresh your page and watch your vote counts.
Since then I've watched it change, I could always tell something felt off about it over the past few years.
Everytime I would google something on the net on my phone and click a Reddit link, I would be prompted to install the app. I tried it and it was shit. Once upon a time I could just open Reddit is Fun through the browser. Reddit made it impossible to do that.
Since discovering this place a few weeks ago now, I have been hit with a familiar feeling, and that is I am actually enjoying my time here as much as I did on Reddit in the early 2010s.
The communities are more grounded, there is no bot activity, my big long posts aren't deleted after posting them due to shitty rules.
I like how it feels free, and everyone agrees to just follow the rules of the community and if the post isn't quite fitting, people can vote on that, as it should be.
Thank you all for restoring something that was once great, I really thought there was no chance in hell people would get away from those platforms. I always told people we need a new website, a new Reddit, and I guess this is it.
I'm 51. I started with BBS's, compuworld, Usenet and MUD telnet screens. I've seen access to the internet and pre internet go from 1,200 baud modems to 56,000 modems to the 5G internet access we have today.
To me, the fedeverse feels like a modern technology in development without corporations ruinous hands in it.
I really hope the corporate hold on social media is breaking, because they eventually ruined everything they touched in order to squeeze every last dollar out of it.
I'm younger than you, and I remember sweet chats with sysops on BBS:es and "rapid fire" message boards (one, then two, then four! replies daily), Fidonet "mailing" and then "mailing" through Usenet gateways via BBS, Gopher, LAN parties with token rings, the thrill of calling phreaked lines to call up a BBS on the other side of the Atlantic for local phone fees. Then with Internet, the Play by Email games with space strategy and fantasy. The plethora of different MUD:s with various themes and boundless optimism and plagiarism...
2400 or 14400 baud modem handshake signals still give me that thrilling feeling of freeedom and futurology. Just last year I had some of them added to my white noise list to sleep better as they also calm me down.
Your comment gave me fuzzy nice warm feelings.
Wow, 14k4 modems, those were great.. after messing about with 300 and 1200 baud modems. (Never got the 300/75 one to work)
I live how the fediverse is more like the old bbs system, federative and not high-jacked by greedy corps. Maybe we're returning to the core of public internet, before the masses swamped in.
BTW I'll turn 51 in less then 2 months. ;) (gramps remembers... π€£)
I forgot about my 1200 baud modem on my C64! Storage was a casset tape.
Mine was on a 386SX-16, never had the need to put the Atari STe on internet. (And had an MSX when I lived with my parents in '85, no clue about BBs'es then)
I had an IBM 386sx with a 15" monitor.
This is starting to feel like an iteration of BBSβ edit: I say bbs, but really I mean Usenet. I guess this is like bbs with better threading and organization, and you login to your local mirror to see whatβs new. I like it, just need to get my head around it.
I'm a little older than you and share your opinions.
Iβd love to know more of this pre internet BBS. What does it stand for?
@Labotomized
BBS - bulletin board system
1970s-80s
a person would run a server (often from home) and people would dial in over a regular phone line and browse the forum(bbs) and leave a text message. If you had one phone line only one person could log in at a time. you might wait weeks for someone to reply to your message. Both ends needed a modem to encode decode from digital to analog and back.
[sent from the microverse(mastodon)]
Dial in with a computer and leave a typed message, not like SMS text messaging.
Some BBSs had a communication system called FIDOnet that would dial up back and forth in a hierarchy at night to update their forums. You could personally run something called a point on fidonet that was analogous to running an instance yourself on Lemmy. I ran a point in the early 90s.
Ahh Usenet. That's where I'd find my first internet porn back in like '94/'95
..I think. Christ it's been a while.