netop://ウィビThe most succinct and accurate description of the Old Web I’ve seen to date.
cc @e11e
GoodNewsGreyShoes🔞(on hiatus)@netopwibby This is an excellent description, & kinda nails why "free as in freedom" software development will always be super important:
Stuff made by intrinsically motivated people is much less likely to face enshitification.
(..it simply has an entirely *different* set of nearly insurmountable challenges!😅)
Tzimisce Flesh@GoodNewsGreyShoes @netopwibby I'd like to add the caveat that while FOSS is a good pursuit, a project being FOSS does not entirely prevent it from being subverted by extrinsic interests. And conversely, a project being proprietary does not strictly imply it isn't made with solely or at least mostly intrinsic motivation.
@flesh @netopwibby Caveat: approved.
Retrospect: unnecessarily broad application of causality to inherently complex correlation between personal motivation & project outcomes; correction is required.
Revisions: complete.
Gratitude: conveyed.(Ty!🙏)
jordan@netopwibby Nice, someone else who customizes the color of the Orange Website
I made mine purple
Hyrax 
@netopwibby I hate modern social media because they are too much about trends and people forget about "social" part, like people will hate and say you are attention seeking if you put lgbtq flags somewhere in profile. My example, I put everywhere trans flags and trans memes to show other trans people, and allies and other lgbtq people, I am their friend and understand them, not because I am seeking some attention, technically I am but not because of trends. I used my example, other people probably have similar examples but I just hate how everything is about trends and nothing is about social part of social media.
@introvertcatto You putting flags everywhere is no different from me putting a Megaman Battle Network banner in my forum signature on every forum I’m on. The modern web lacks empathy.
christina b@netopwibby this resonates with the way I have been thinking about designing Socialroots for connection. More here on #SlowSocial
Slow Social and the CozyWeb
#SlowSocial digital practices and 'cozyweb' spaces point to a way out of addictive, algorithmic social media platforms. But our tech stacks - and their incentives - matter. Let's support connecting across movements from different fields that already exist to help 'Rewild the Internet'.
PIUVAS. 
@netopwibby rare hacker news w
@piuvas We love to see it
Dave bauer@netopwibby This! There are still folks creating this atmosphere on the web, outside of technology, despite and within the big siloed platforms. I tell everyone I can about this.
James@netopwibby Yes, this is so right, and is the reason why I don't monetize, it would force me into a situation where I'd have to change what I write, and then what's the point of writing?
Anthropy@netopwibby you can still choose to use the right platforms. They are still out there.
in that sense I feel like a lot of today's negative experience comes from people blindly following corporate advertisement, and having an incessant need to go with 'the big standard things'.
If people dared to actually reject what they hated more, if people actually sought alternatives rather than pathologically clinging to what they dislike, maybe they could actually fix this abusive relationship for once.
Usagi@anthropy @netopwibby It's not so trivial.
Ever heard of tyranny of the defaults? That's the reason why Google pays billions to be the default search engine.
Ever heard of network effect and customer lock-in? They make it nearly impossible to get away once trapped in one of the 'big standard things' towards which people are pushed by default.
Or as someone put it when your proposed solution starts with "If all people just ..." it's not a solution. 
Ever heard of tyranny of the defaults? That's the reason why Google pays billions to be the default search engine.
Ever heard of network effect and customer lock-in? They make it nearly impossible to get away once trapped in one of the 'big standard things' towards which people are pushed by default.
Or as someone put it when your proposed solution starts with "If all people just ..." it's not a solution.
@bunny @netopwibby I think it's important to acknowledge the lacking things in the alternatives out there and keep improving.
But I also want to emphasize that a lot of people suffer from learned helplessness, which is incredibly frustrating when hearing them whine about how things suck.
It's like people that buy croutons at the grocery store and complain they suck. Like, no shit, have you tried baking some sliced bread with olive oil and garlic? It takes less money and less time than buying m
@anthropy @netopwibby Let's consider your diagnosis is correct, and we are experiencing an epidemic of learned helplessness, and that's the thing that gets in the way of the improvements you would want to see.
Learned helplessness is a medical condition which has causes and treatments.
If you want to see the progress that is blocked by learned helplessness you need to eradicate the causes of it and promote treatments.
Learned helplessness is a medical condition which has causes and treatments.
If you want to see the progress that is blocked by learned helplessness you need to eradicate the causes of it and promote treatments.
@bunny I understand your point of view, and I again think that alternative platforms can and should keep improving.
but, realize that the treatment for learned helplessness is psychological counseling and introspection. Which is for example setting reasonable goals, like buying an open-friendly phone instead of yet another iphone/samsung, or moving to fedi instead of yet another corp social media.
As much as I don't want to sound dismissive: Not every problem is someone else's problem.
@anthropy You say "Not every problem is someone else's problem" while you are saying the exact opposite.
As in the argument seems to boil down to the elitist "Somebody pulled me up by my bootstraps so everyone else should pull themselves by theirs. I's not my problem if theirs are torn."
Counseling is part of health care, and there are politics for making it widely available, and politics for dismantling public healthcare. If you are concerned about learned helplessness epidemic blocking achieving your goals that should inform where you stand on this issue.
Introspection requires that people are well and not constantly fighting for survival. Things like worker rights, unionization, public welfare programs make it more likely that people have the leeway to think about their choices, as opposed being squeezed to work endless hours just to survive. If you are concerned about epidemic of learned helplessness that blocks the progress you want to see that should inform your position on these issues as well.
Monopolies reduce the choice available to people and cause real helplessness. There are politics to strengthen and politics to dismantle anti-monopoly law. If you are concerned about choice that should inform your position of the matter.
Of course, there isn't always on opportunity to do something about these problems. Nonetheless, knowing who is working for you and who is working against you is useful. Not only politicians but also friends, relatives, colleagues, etc.
As in the argument seems to boil down to the elitist "Somebody pulled me up by my bootstraps so everyone else should pull themselves by theirs. I's not my problem if theirs are torn."
Counseling is part of health care, and there are politics for making it widely available, and politics for dismantling public healthcare. If you are concerned about learned helplessness epidemic blocking achieving your goals that should inform where you stand on this issue.
Introspection requires that people are well and not constantly fighting for survival. Things like worker rights, unionization, public welfare programs make it more likely that people have the leeway to think about their choices, as opposed being squeezed to work endless hours just to survive. If you are concerned about epidemic of learned helplessness that blocks the progress you want to see that should inform your position on these issues as well.
Monopolies reduce the choice available to people and cause real helplessness. There are politics to strengthen and politics to dismantle anti-monopoly law. If you are concerned about choice that should inform your position of the matter.
Of course, there isn't always on opportunity to do something about these problems. Nonetheless, knowing who is working for you and who is working against you is useful. Not only politicians but also friends, relatives, colleagues, etc.
@bunny it's not elitist to say that there's a balance between expecting the world to fix all your problems for you, and having some agency and being able to help yourself.
By all means, reduce the monopolies, improve opensource software, create the environment you want to live in, etc
but in the end, it's up to people to stop buying iphones and samsungs and windows desktops etc. If that takes a moment of discomfort, so be it; it's not impossible, there are plenty of existing good alternatives.
@bunny I also much loathe the comparison to healthcare here. I am 100% for socialized healthcare.
But if people keep buying privatized healthcare because "that's what they're used to" and they refuse to take part in the systematic improvements that underpin the changes you seek, then it simply won't happen.
And that's not because there's no attempts to improve the world, but you can't just pretend that 'the world has to fix this'. You ARE part of that world, you should work towards the fixes.
@anthropy That's where I have to disagree.
Berating people for not having agency is elitism.
Lack of agency is exactly what marginalization is about.
Agency is what privilege boils down to.
Berating people for not having agency is elitism.
Lack of agency is exactly what marginalization is about.
Agency is what privilege boils down to.
@bunny you're saying that like people don't have the agency to pick anything other than a new iphone. And that's exactly what I meant by learned helplessness.
to be clear: I 100% support people who are struggling, I think we should make the environment as welcoming as we can
but in the end people do have to actively choose to not sustain the terrible system that we currently have. As much as I get that it may not immediately be comfortable.
Tisha Tiger / Neliger@netopwibby That hurts a bit by sounding really true 😿
octesian@netopwibby check out https://wiby.org/
Marcin Cieślak@netopwibby not sure if it is that good. It just defers the problem to the definitions of "intrinsic" and "extrinsic"
LR@saper @netopwibby ...which aren't difficult to define. so, no deference.
intrinsic: creating because i want to create. sharing because i want to share.
extrinsic: creating/sharing in order to achieve some other goal. here, creating/sharing doesn't have to be fun. you'd even suffer for it.
it's possible to be motivated by both simultaneously though, and there it gets tricky.
taylor 
(this would be a quote, but i can't it looks like)
i've been meaning to write a piece about #resonite in regards to this - while objectively very different from the old web (it's not a fully open platform, it's 3D & VR, it's a social multiplayer experience), it reminds me so much of the old web - just the vibe of learning the tools of crafts they're not in (game dev, 3d modelling, programming), in a way that's extremely quick, and you can just do spontaneously to make things that aren't valuable in the way the modern internet works (ie, engages as big of an audience for as long as possible so you can sell ads on it), but just making things for the sake of making things that are cool and interesting to you.
also helps that the platform itself seems pretty enshitification resistant as compared to say, vrchat
Carlo Zottmann@netopwibby Original post, in case anyone was looking for it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45372654
Tim@netopwibby Respectfully disagree.
The Old Web is the epitome of capitalism's ability to monetize the platform at the time.
Everything we hate about the NEW web is business's increased ability to monetize the platform, now that 20+ years of community effort and development have gone into resolving the constraints of the Old Web.
@penryu Damn. This is also succinct and accurate.
asie@penryu @netopwibby I don't think the two are contradictory.
The Old Web was monetized. The companies involved in the chain weren't exactly charities. However, the platform being harder to monetize meant that extrinsic motivations weren't as overpowering compared to intrinsic motivations as they are now.
In my eyes, both of those observations are distinct sides of what is ultimately the same coin.
The Old Web was monetized. The companies involved in the chain weren't exactly charities. However, the platform being harder to monetize meant that extrinsic motivations weren't as overpowering compared to intrinsic motivations as they are now.
In my eyes, both of those observations are distinct sides of what is ultimately the same coin.
@penryu @netopwibby Or, to put it in a clearer way: when people are nostalgic over the Old Web, they are not being nostalgic over Microsoft's monopolist practices with Internet Explorer, or jumping from free web host to free web host, or dealing with the horrendous pricing many countries had to deal with to access the Internet. They're nostalgic for the community spirit that existed despite all of that, and that has become increasingly harder to maintain as the corporate machine grew in power, scope, and influence.
@asie @netopwibby I don't personally believe all of these perspectives are identical, nor consistent with my own, nor even compatible. But they are likely all entirely valid for their observers.
@asie @netopwibby That might sound like a cop-out. Maybe it is.
@penryu
I don't think it is a cop-out. Communication is hard; there's a reason people end up writing entire books to make just a few points. It could very well be that the same statements modulated by your perspective and experience mean very different things than they do modulated by mine. It could very well be that I left something out, either in my writing or in my perception, that makes all the difference.
I think the statements as presented don't show the whole story either way - fears of long-term financial instability also help lessen the value of intrinsic motivation, for example. I agree any nostalgic idolization of the so-called "Old Web" has to be done with care, as it had flaws and struggles of its own; but there's only so much I can fit in a fediverse post written in a few minutes from my laptop.
I don't think it is a cop-out. Communication is hard; there's a reason people end up writing entire books to make just a few points. It could very well be that the same statements modulated by your perspective and experience mean very different things than they do modulated by mine. It could very well be that I left something out, either in my writing or in my perception, that makes all the difference.
I think the statements as presented don't show the whole story either way - fears of long-term financial instability also help lessen the value of intrinsic motivation, for example. I agree any nostalgic idolization of the so-called "Old Web" has to be done with care, as it had flaws and struggles of its own; but there's only so much I can fit in a fediverse post written in a few minutes from my laptop.
Tim ChaseWhich is also why "removing web-advertising and monetization will kill the web" arguments largely fall on my indifference. It might kill a great deal of the current extrinsically-motivated web, but regardless of what happens to it, the intrinsically-motivated web will live on.
Spark Purcell (they/them)@gumnos @netopwibby @thelastpsion web advertising and monetization is what caused all the problems of the modern day, actually.
Yeah, I very much have the "don't the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya" sentiment if web-advertising and monetization killed their golden goose.
@ailurocrat @gumnos @thelastpsion Monetization was always part of the spec, just never implemented. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Status/402
Advertising took over as the dominant method of such.
@netopwibby @gumnos @thelastpsion so it was always doomed then. Well, let's build something that isn't.
@ailurocrat @gumnos @thelastpsion The commercial web will always exist alongside protocols like Gopher/Gemini. However, those lack JS IIRC which non-nerds depend on.
The Web was built with good intentions but it's been usurped. I do think it's possible to have monetization rails without it devolving into what we have now.