All walled gardens, none of the democratization we know now
I think you’ve got that backwards. The early days of the web were the wild west; blogs, personal sites and forums were multitudinous. Weird, niche content was everywhere. Nobody knew what the web was supposed to be yet, so it could be anything. Nobody really knew how to make money from it, so passion rather than dollars was the motivation to create content.
Now, the web is basically a giant funnel into six monolithic corporate controlled websites (ie. Walled gardens). Enshittification has ensued and the fun has ended.
I pine for the days when you would log on to BBSes to have genuine discussions about niche hobbies and topics. It didn’t matter who you were as your only identity was your username; you could be whatever you wanted.
Now, the web is overflowing with millions of desperate, near identical 19 year olds shilling for BoredVPN while showing their arse cracks for fake internet points and sponsorship money.
Lemmy / Mastodon is the first platform in a VERY long time which has the same feeling as those early days and I really, really hope it sticks around.
I think you’ve got that backwards. The early days of the web were the wild west; blogs, personal sites and forums were multitudinous. Weird, niche content was everywhere. Nobody knew what the web was supposed to be yet, so it could be anything. Nobody really knew how to make money from it, so passion rather than dollars was the motivation to create content.
Now, the web is basically a giant funnel into six monolithic corporate controlled websites (ie. Walled gardens). Enshittification has ensued and the fun has ended.
I pine for the days when you would log on to BBSes to have genuine discussions about niche hobbies and topics. It didn’t matter who you were as your only identity was your username; you could be whatever you wanted.
Now, the web is overflowing with millions of desperate, near identical 19 year olds shilling for BoredVPN while showing their arse cracks for fake internet points and sponsorship money.
Lemmy / Mastodon is the first platform in a VERY long time which has the same feeling as those early days and I really, really hope it sticks around.