
The web, on this day 10 years ago - rhapsodic
http://tenyearsago.io/
======
czardoz
Haha, the HN post about Facebook has a very interesting comment which mentions
the internet "a decade from now":

> It is just a joke that Facebook could be valued at $6 billion. An absolute
> joke.

> FB has 30 million users, and that's not considering potential duplicates.

> The number of active users may be even smaller than that, and some people
> like I only log on once a week or so.

> If FB gets sold for $6 billion, that means the new owning company would need
> to make $500 million a year for 12 years(!) to break even.

> Frankly, the Internet will probably be drastically different a decade from
> now.

> FB doesn't even make $50 million a year, who in their right mind thinks that
> they will all of a sudden make a profit off Facebook by spending that much
> money?

> I swear some of these big companies just like throwing money at things. Yes,
> the dot-com bubble is here once again.

Original comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34165](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34165)

~~~
omot
Sounds like people talking about Uber today. "No way in hell is Uber worth xxx
billion. An Absolute joke. Uber is losing xxx million dollars every quarter.
Who in their right mind thinks that they will all of a sudden make a profit
off Uber by spending that much money?"

I mean this tells me that engineers (assuming on average there are more
technical readers on hacker news) don't know anything about products and their
values. Or it's just that people aren't capable of thinking long-term.

~~~
a13n
Err, except Uber is actually in big trouble...

~~~
omot
Do you think that trouble will last the next ten years?

~~~
a13n
I don't think it'll need to

------
gs7
Front page story 10 years ago on the NY Times: In Silicon Valley, Millionaires
Who Don’t Feel Rich
([http://web.archive.org/web/20070805144155/http://www.nytimes...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070805144155/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html?hp))

Sounds familiar...

~~~
tsunamifury
I remember reading this exact story in college thinking, I'll happily move to
a place where he had a million and don't feel rich... I'd still have a
million.

And more or less, it's worked out. You still live vastly better here with a
million than many other parts of the world without a million.

~~~
ardivekar
So basically you're saying, having a million dollars is better than not having
a million dollars :P

------
bhdzllr
Nice idea.

Looked at the Apple website and before they opened iOS for native development
(and monetarization through the App Store) they tried to push Web-Apps, but
maybe this was just a experiment to validate if people will use it:

> Developers can create Web 2.0 applications that look and behave just like
> the applications built into iPhone, and provide seamless integration with
> iPhone applications and services including making a phone call, sending an
> email, and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications
> created using web standards can extend iPhone's capabilities without
> compromising its reliability or security.

~~~
manmal
A collegue (in college) told me that they initially did not want to release a
developer kit (Steve did not "believe" in apps) and that they were a bit
ashamed of the state the SDK was in at the time. I've found no article
verifying this though.

------
davidcbc
The CSS for ESPN wouldn't load properly for me which accurately replicates the
experience of using ESPN's site 10 years ago

------
nkcmr
Wow. 10 years ago today, a Breitbart link was at the top of the reddit front
page. Huh...

~~~
jklinger410
Breitbart has changed a lot in the last decade.

It used to be far more reputable IIRC.

~~~
thehardsphere
It began its descent after Andrew Breitbart died. I think it was in 2012.

------
internalfx
LOL. Hacker news looks exactly the same.

~~~
tarruda
Wouldn't have it any other way.

Minimalism FTW.

------
shurcooL
One pattern I notice and dislike is the increase of average font size on the
web (and in OSes), and the overall decrease in density of information. BBC 10
years ago vs now side by side shows the difference [1].

[1]
[http://instantshare.virtivia.com:27080/1k6i3cajkox2c.png](http://instantshare.virtivia.com:27080/1k6i3cajkox2c.png)

~~~
axefrog
Don't forget that screen resolutions were lower on average back then, which
means that the side-by-side comparison doesn't really account for relative
scale.

------
losteverything
What i love about these things is i have to think about back then

What phone was i using?

When did i last buy a roll of film?

First amazon order and what was it?

First online order?

When did i get rid of landline?

When did i stop using aol? When did i get gmail?

~~~
taneq
Pretty sure it was an Ericsson W880i. The last non-touchscreen phone I
owned... I miss that phone sometimes.

Roll of film? What's that again?

I think I still haven't ordered anything off Amazon, hadn't bought much online
at all back then.

I've never had a landline in my own name (that we actually used, had a couple
that came with an ADSL bundle when naked ADSL wasn't cheaper).

What's AOL? Got Gmail in '04 I think, late in the 'invite only' phase before
they got evil.

------
kasbah
[http://tenyearsago.io/news.ycombinator.com](http://tenyearsago.io/news.ycombinator.com)

>504 Gateway Time-out

>The server didn't respond in time.

------
bdcravens
Top story on HN: Wesabe, a dead startup.

Tells you how important HN launches are.

------
howderek
I wish this would link directly to the Internet Archive instead of showing it
in a frame so that it would be easier to send links to people.

------
tapanjk
10 years later, here's what I feel:

\- Some websites have changed for the better, for e.g. youtube.com

\- Some have changed but maintained the same feel, for e.g. amazon.com and
news.ycombinator.com

\- Some have changed little, but I wish they had not changed, because they
used to be better, for e.g. reddit.com and nytimes.com

~~~
starky
Reddit was significantly more US focused and political than I remember. Wasn't
surprised to see a Ron Paul article up at the top, but I remember more
technology and programming type articles.

It does show how much nicer the front page was when it wasn't full of low
effort pictures because image hosting sucked until imgur came along.

------
bhaile
Fun link on Reddit:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070819054905/http://whyfirefoxi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070819054905/http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/)

------
savanaly
Things do not appear to have changed that much, huh?

------
fallingfrog
Hah, not a word about subprime mortgages

------
hjek
Ten years ago I could use the upvote arrows on HN w/o JavaScript.

~~~
nothrabannosir
So nothing has changed.

------
thangngoc89
I really like the idea, and looking at Youtube interface 10 years ago remind
me of the time when I started writing small programs.

But I'm disappointing that the website doesn't use SSL at all.

~~~
frik
It just links to Archive.org, and spoofs the address bar. So the content is
100% loaded from Archive.org. A very trivial website, but interesting looking
back for a few minutes nevertheless. You can do the same with a more complex
interface on Archive.org.

------
bitwize
popular subreddits:

* programming

* science

Oh, how times have changed.

~~~
hhmc
The 'race to the bottom' of reddit has been fascinating to watch. I think it
clearly demonstrates that without moderation popular forums will necessarily
devolve to lowest common denominator content. (I do, however, appreciate there
are still quality subreddits).

~~~
the_cat_kittles
agree, though i think its tempting to view this cynically rather than as an
almost inevitable product of the circumstances. i think it was david foster
wallace who made a similar point about tv, namely that it caters to the lowest
common denominator because thats what we all share- you cannot have the "mass"
part of mass media without doing that. we all have more deep interests, but
they are disparate- so the venn diagram essentially dictates the subject
matter.

~~~
hhmc
For sure, but technological trends have certainly catalysed the process, at
least with respect to reddit. The ubiquity of the gif, and incredibly low
friction image hosting services come to mind.

------
jimjimjim
The web, on this day 10 years ago was better.

------
dbg31415
Nice to see HN keeping up with the times.

No redesigns in how long now?

The fonts on this site are hilariously small. Padding is tiny. All the feel of
the 1990s, today!

Still good content, but come on -- do we not have a designer or artistic
front-end who can help out?

~~~
krapp
I think the anti-modern layout has become too much of a cultural shibboleth at
this point, people cherish any feature they feel will drive away casual users
and preserve the intellectual purity of the community. PG once mentioned that
he wasn't concerned with such trivial things, which makes updating the design
difficult without sparking a minor revolt among the userbase, _especially_ if
such an update causes the site to look or feel more like Reddit, which it
likely would.

Plus, bear in mind that HN doesn't separate its logic from layout in
templates, unless it deviates wildly from the original Arc forum code, so
redesigning the layout around, say, lists as opposed to tables may be more
complicated than it would be on another site.

But on the plus side, since i've been here at least, the expired links bug has
been fixed, shadowbanning is community-reversible, Show HN is a thing, users
can hide and favorite threads, and there's thread folding. Those are all
definite improvements to the user experience.

I agree with you that the text could be more readable - a site meant for
intellectual and technical discussion should be encouraging long-form
comments, not discouraging it (as it does by fading the text for non-link
post) but it does seem that the staff have been improving what they can, when
they can get around to it.

~~~
dbg31415
I'd like to see a site that has the best content in the industry actually look
like a site that has the best content in the industry.

~~~
wingworks
IDK, doesn't really bother me anymore, not since some pretty good Chrome
extensions came out, e.g. Georgify, which makes HN 1000% easier to read. + I
built my own minimal front end to HN with just the info I'm interested in (
[https://news.adriel.co.nz/](https://news.adriel.co.nz/) )

------
bigphishy
This reminds me of another good site www.pastdaily.com

------
thaaddd
This open up a flood of nostalgia for anyone else?

Apple, Youtube, and Amazon especially.

All sorts of feels.

~~~
droidist2
Yes, I really miss the old YouTube look.

------
frik
Reddit and HN look almost the same, only little web theme changes. Look how
great the HN stories were, all around startups - no corporate PR nor offtopic
- want it back :)
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070707020853/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070707020853/http://news.ycombinator.com/news)

One of the stories "PG: What's your current take on reddit's comment system?
(reddit.com)":
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070714221535/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070714221535/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/item?id=33886)

Another story was about Justin.tv, nowadays know as Twitch:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070708190608/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070708190608/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/item?id=32786)

Look at Apple.com, the introduction to the first iPhone. Notice the YouTube
app on iOS 1-4 looked like a vintage CRT TV, I remember it.

IMDb received a new CSS stylesheet, and the invaluable comments system got
unfortunately removed - otherwise little changes.

YouTube changed a lot. Ten years ago it looks still like the early days before
Google.

------
jbigelow76
Hacker News comments age about as well as Donald Trump's tweets regarding the
Obama administration.

~~~
muninn_
Why are you already introducing politics into this discussion?

~~~
jMyles
> introducing politics

 _Any_ discussion about company valuations is as political as a discussion
about US elections. Pretending that "business" and "politics" and "technology"
are separated by clearly discernible walls is itself toxic to discussions
about any of them.

~~~
sethrin
That may or may not be the case (I would dispute it) but the rules here
expressly place political discussions as off-topic. From what I have seen,
banning accounts seems to be a last resort for people who post almost
exclusively political attacks; one has to be fairly intent on making oneself
unpleasant to raise attention. I tend to agree with you that there can be
value to political debate, but we must abide by the rules of the forum.

~~~
jMyles
> but the rules here expressly place political discussions as off-topic

This is absolutely untrue. How many times (and how many ways) does dang have
to clarify this? Here's the guideline in question:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

I'm prepared to argue that a comparison of the aging process of HN comments to
tweets from a current US President about a former one is an interesting and
novel set of phenomena. And even if it weren't, I think that it's well outside
the kinds of stories that are identified by the guideline as off-topic.

~~~
sethrin
I'm sure that there is some interesting technical work being done by various
political participants. Tweets do not present novel technological problems;
I'm not sure what the HN interest might be.

------
gmacdon89
ron paul, lol

------
xienze
Reddit 10 years ago

> BUSH BAD BUSH BAD BUSH BAD

Reddit today

> TRUMP BAD TRUMP BAD TRUMP BAD

~~~
pier25
You can stay away from /r/all or /r/popular.

------
dubya1
Be careful - I got a bad cookie when I visited this website a few days ago.

~~~
icebraining
What's a bad cookie?

~~~
kjbarber
Oatmeal raisin...

