The internet's media content is now a better version of modern TV (YouTube/streaming is reality tv done properly, Netflix is HBO with more freedom), a better version of libraries (though in many ways worse, as well), a better version of mass communication (luddites can debate this, but turning humanity into groups of isolated tribes, yet on a global scale, may actually be an extremely positive thing), and that's about it.
This means it’s now standardised...and boring as shit. The freedom of information it offered before is diluted by censorship, advertising and indexing. Individual voice has been crushed by the genres that have emerged from capitalism, democracy and interface: instead of nebulous site design, we have things like blogs, tumblr, reddit; all aiming for social media regurgitation, resulting in supposedly unique genres that are more like a homogenous blob of bullshit. And forums, the most freeform mass communication interface since the original forum in Greece, have been subsumed by shit like reddit, where most posts fall victim to upvote greed, or twitter-like reduction due to the format.
New forms of internet interaction such as VR Chat, while fucking hilarious, appear to exist (to an outsider) for the sole purpose of spamming memes.
I still believe all of this is probably the best thing for humanity since medicine lobotomised itself a century or two ago, but it's boring as shit to me—which is one of the reasons people may think it's bad for humanity. But as the ever wise Edgecrusher said, "violence is fun, pacifism is boring".
But have I missed something? Am I too old? Is there somewhere on the internet (other than thevgpress) that still gives any of you hope?
Maybe all the internet needs to be great again is for my wonderful avatar to work. :(
I think you're being a bit too pessimistic about this Foolz, there's always hope. Hope is like the sun. If you only believe it when you see it, you'll never make it through the night.
We VGPressers and former wankers are the spark that will light the fire that will burn this boring internet down.
Not really much to add....I basically agree with you on all points. I've noticed more and more people who've been doing the whole online thing since around 2000 or earlier feel the same way and have started to really sound off on it over the past year or two. I guess it's like most anything else....when it was new and fresh, it was wild and natural and untarnished by corruption. Then evil pricks figured out how to exploit it for their own agenda's and here we are. It's a watered down shadow of it's former self.
BTW the name drop caught me off guard...had to +1 just for that.
I agree with edge. The internet is just going through the same cycle any other new medium did. We're just in the boring AAA fase at the moment. Give it another decade and there'll be all kinds of niche indie internets spawning all over.
Yeah, it’s one of the only things I missed about the Gamespot days. Everything felt a little more unpredictable and spontaneous. I also enjoyed all the cool people and their interesting personalities. We have that here but on a much smaller scale.
Foolz, you will just have to change you avi to this:
Edit: of course my image doesn’t work either.
I also agree with Edge, but the indie wave doesn't give me much hope. Reactionary stuff isn't much more interesting than the stuff it's opposed to; they're two sides of the same coin. Once you reach a certain saturation point of knowledge in any medium or movement, there's no going back.
What did you try to do that failed?
I had an image for you that said” Grump: Make the Internet Great Again.”
The problem with the internet today is that the barrier to entry is gone. If you were putting anything out there, be it just content or your own site, you had to have some skill and some money. If you couldn't write basic code you do anything and shit didn't just host itself (well I guess Geocities did host for free, but Geocities was pretty much closed off to the rest of the world due to all its content being worthless). At any rate, dumbasses were forced to stay on the sidelines and just enjoy what others put out there. Then everything got free and easy and the fucking internet got democratized. Once again mob rule proves to be a failure.
I'm sure there's good stuff out there. Amazing innovative ideas that would offer wonder for all. Unfortunately it's all buried under cat memes. Fortunately I'm going to do my part. I'm going to the dark web right now to buy heroin and possibly a sex slave if I can get priority mail on it.
As someone who had made a terrible website with no money and no skill back when this barrier of entry existed, I definitely don't agree.
Also, a lot of the more interesting things on the internet were on geocities and angelfire, and were easily accessible via search engines. Anyway, the barrier of entry for making a triple a game is pretty high, but they're almost all shit; just like Steam greenlight games.
However, I do agree with the rest of the post. Although, the dark web is a symptom of the problem with the internet today. When my sister was doing research on execution and other violence-related topics, it was tremendously easy to find relevant information and footage. Now that stuff is nicely buried, as it is if you're trying to find it in a library, or anywhere else. All that's left this side of the dark web is gore sites, and obviously they're terrible for information, and their selection of footage is just based on whatever's going on politically right now. They may as well be shitty international news sites, really.