• DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Absolutely. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that there was a time, not too long ago, when the Internet was actually fun to use and you didn’t have to search too hard for useful information.

    • stabby_cicada@slrpnk.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Ironically, back then people my age were warning kids “don’t trust anyone or anything you read on the Internet, don’t give out any personal information to anyone”.

      Fast forward 25 years and my peers are quoting 8chan shitposts as fact and “investing” their life savings on crypto websites they heard about on Discord.

      • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s even worse than that, the very person telling ME not to trust anything on the internet (my mother) now believes everything she reads on Facebook without a second thought.

      • Facebones@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        And NFTs. I know people IRL currently shocked Pikachu-ing that they aren’t rolling in cash off of gifs

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Man, I think it was best when you DID have to search for information.

      This morning I saw a link to Boingboing and it made me miss going to websites. They obviously still exist but most of them are just rehashing reddit posts or similar. Like if you see it on one page you can be sure it’s on a dozen more…most posts are from social media now and it makes me not bother browsing.

      It was so cool to stumble upon (RIP stumbledupon…) interesting links on forums. The indie music blogs I read are long gone, replaced with social media pages.

      As much as I like lemmy, it’s just more of the same we’ve had for years. Having everything in one place is cool and all …but… I miss having bookmarks and different sites to go to.

      I’m open to suggestions for general interest/weird blogs that aren’t full of “watch this video from [platform]” posts and get updated regularly if anyone has any.

      • HenryWong327@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It’s pretty niche, but if you’re interested in ancient and medieval history (with a focus on military history), and breaking down historical inaccuracies in media, A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry is a pretty cool blog that gets updated fairly regularly and is run by a history professor.

      • DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yep, it was horrible. I vividly remember Yahoo! directories…ugh. But there was a golden age when there were plenty of useful websites and forums, AND when Google actually gave you the results you wanted.

        • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          Back in the days when you’d collect new search engines like pokemon and battle them against each other for the BEST RESULTS.

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        1 year ago

        He didn’t say it was easy. He said it was fun.

        Browsing was fun in the late 90s. Clicking through search engine directories you probably wouldn’t find what you were looking for, but you’d still spend hours reading about lucid dreaming, brain wave synchronisation, how to make coke from bananas and all kinds of random hobbies and things that you wouldn’t even have thought of searching for in the first place.

        Internet today is just buy this, buy that and click bait. While you might eventually find what you’re searching for for free it’s just no fun to browse.