
So the internet didn’t turn out the way we hoped - ajay-d
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/14/magazine/internet-future-dream.html
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replicatorblog
One of my favorite hypothetical questions is "Would you take a deal where you
could 10X your salary, but you'd have to live the rest of your days starting
in 1979."

Imagine all the same tech is available at the same periods in time, but
produced by different companies so you can't do the "Back to the Future Sports
Almanac" thing.

Imagine you're 40 today. Would you rather have 10X as much money, but know you
won't get Aol until your 55? No smartphones until you qualify for Social
Security? Maybe 10X is worth it, but 5X? 2X? It helps put the value we get
from the web in perspective.

Just once, I'd love to read a story about tech in a major pub from the
perspective of someone 35-55-ish who remembers the pre-internet world — and
can't stop raving about how much better everything is now.

I get that it might not be a majority position, but it's not insignificant,
but it's almost entirely invisible in the NYT's tech coverage.

Moreover, I find it crazy how every misstep of American tech companies
portends the end of democracy, but they have the gall to write: "In China, a
whole new internet is flowering."

~~~
ryandvm
That's a great hypothetical, but not because it's a no-brainer. I'd have to
think long and hard about that choice.

Sure, we have vast amounts of knowledge and entertainment at our fingertips,
but the reality is that most of us are spending our days staring at
Facestagram and binge watching Netflix.

Having enough money to be able to retire after a couple years and then
spending the rest of my life traveling the world and reading every book I can
doesn't sound so unenlightened in comparison.

~~~
replicatorblog
One of the nuances is thinking about all the advances in other parts of life
that have been unlocked thanks to tech.

\+ FEA/FEM would make the airplanes you use to travel much safer.

\+ The drugs that might not have been developed as quickly might prolong that
retirement dramatically.

It's hard to disentangle all the ways tech has improved our life!

FWIW, I'd take a 50% pay cut to stay in the modern era...

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jotm
It's exactly as we hoped, wtf. Not the Internet's fault most people are dumb
as a brick.

It's still possible for anyone to run their own stuff. And it's still a
massive repository of all human knowledge, if you take into account all
sources, legal or illegal.

What do we do from here? Stop being dumb and trying to change into
subscription TV, for starters.

Fringe believers need actual education, not more control over the sources of
their misinformation.

~~~
beatgammit
I think we just need a few people to show how things ought to work and get
that to be popular.

If we all hate ads enough and tracking, how about we invent a convenient way
to pay for content across sites anonymously? I really like the design behind
GNU Taler, which is a simple centralized cryptocurrency without the mining BS,
so it can be used as a simple standin for currency, like PayPal. All we need
to do is make a few popular content creation services use it, tipping small
amounts for gratis content and larger amounts for access to pay restricted
content. The only cookies that need to exist are proof of payment,
cryptographically tied to the transaction.

I don't want to sign up for $10/month or whatever to access an article or view
a video, I just want to access some given content. I _do_ want to subscribe to
content that I consume consistently to get a bulk discount, and I'd rather pay
a little bit than see ads. That being said, every payment system so far is
more work than it's worth to send a dollar or less, and the fees on top remove
a lot of the value. I'd rather put $X into an account each month and click a
button to send a small part of that to the content creator with little to no
fees involved (maybe a one time load fee if anything).

The internet is only broken because the current solutions are insufficient and
we've turned to legislation instead of innovation to solve the problem.

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CoolGuySteve
10 or 15 years ago, you'd click on a political link on Slashdot, early
reddit/digg or whatever and the top comment would usually be pulling apart all
the oversights and bullshit in excruciating detail.

It was good, the internet was a 'cold medium' in Marshal McLuhan terms. If the
internet of that time replaced the 'hot medium' of television, things could
only get better I thought.

I was a fool! I never conceived that outrageous bullshit like antivax or God
Emporer memes could get so much traction.

~~~
Nasrudith
Reminds me of the SMAC "Evil lurks in the datalinks as it lurked in the
streets but it never was the streets that were evil."

The stupidity and evil is coming from humanity - merely destroying the current
bridge it is crossing won't remove it and will hinder everyone else more.

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contravariant
Having a cookie policy popup take up half the screenspace while trying to read
the article certainly makes for a compelling argument.

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earthboundkid
Well, better luck next time, dear.

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haolez
I think I’ve acquired “New York Times fatigue”. When reading a headline, I can
always tell if it’s from NYT before checking the source.

The headlines are usually clickbait and the subjects play with your fears and
concerns. It’s really tiring.

~~~
helpPeople
And needing to give them personal information to read their articles...

Why are independent blogs bad again?

