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The early internet was so human and genuine.
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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It sucks because it’s beginning to feel like a life wasted. I got in early, my career pre-dates the 1st .com crash. My first browser was Mosaic, then shortly became Netscape with the big pulsating “N” animation.
I LOVED the early internet. I loved the personal sites, webrings, IRC and newsgroups. I remember the first time I spoke with someone on the other side of the world (hello to my Canberra friend, it’s me, your midwestern buddy). I felt part of something that was new and exciting and fun.
Then ads came and it’s just gone to shit ever since. To the point where I now hate being online, all my shit is selfhosted and I barely interact with anything besides lemmy and mastodon (they still feel like the actual internet).
I used to be slightly disappointed my kids didn’t turn out as nerdy as me. Now I am just thrilled that I was able to be a cautionary tale for them.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "a life wasted" — can you elaborate? I'm getting the sense that you're quite jaded from the early internet dying, but I don't understand why you consider this to be a waste (or what you mean by being a cautionary tale).
Part of my curiosity comes from the fact that I am probably similar levels of nerdy as you, but I am somewhat younger than you . This means my early experience of the internet is quite different, and I am endlessly fascinated by what came before — in an odd way, it feels like learning about my own "cultural heritage", so to speak.
My career has been in building infrastructure for internet services. I got into this line of work because I felt like it was democratizing knowledge and bringing people together. The way it’s instead gone, I regret being part of it, and I wish I would have gone into another line of work.