Recent comments in /f/internet

Burwicke wrote

Tumblr has passed hands from VC to megacorp and back and forth for the past decade, and the cold hard truth is that it is a platform that is completely incapable of thriving under the management of those soul-sucking, revenue-hungry vultures.

I think that's true for basically any (even mildly) anti-capitalist community, too. There will (rightfully) be vehement protest against monetization, because capitalists are trying to profit off the creativity and genius of the users. There will (rightfully) be protests against censorship, as capitalists try to appease the puritanical advertisers at the cost of the user base's fundamental rights. There will (rightfully) always be discontent with the new """features""" developed as there is a fundamental disconnect in goals between the community that uses the website, and the owners that exploit them.

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fortmis OP wrote

Discussions of democratizing cyberspace conveniently avoid fundamental questions about work, class and who must actually labor to make the machines available to large numbers of people. Who would agree to take a bath in toxic chemicals and increase their chances of cancer while mindlessly assembling computer chips, except under the coercion of wage labor?

One of many fabulous quotes

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tuesday wrote

I can't get rid of my home internet. I am taking classes online. I'm also hoping to work from home once I'm out of school.

However, I have recently decided that I'm going to ditch the smart phone for a pretty basic flip phone. My biggest hesitation was not having access to podcasts when I'm on the road (I live in the middle of nowhere so it's a 40 minute+ drive to get anywhere) and not having GPS but I can get a garmin which doesn't need a subscription and an mp3 player without wifi or bluetooth and just use those instead. It means carrying more devices but it also means being tracked less (currently reading about the ways that law enforcement can access your data from your cellphone without a warrant or court order and it's really bad).

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ghost wrote

I donā€™t have regular home internetā€¦ my partner and I have smartphones and a cellular hotspot but we seriously limit our usage because even though itā€™s ā€œunlimitedā€ data, these companies all lie and will cut you off when they feel like it. I work remotely so I need internet for that, and my partnerā€™s work is mobile so he needs a smartphone to work on site, but we really donā€™t miss regular internet at home.

I donā€™t/canā€™t torrent movies and tv any more, but I donā€™t really care.

Unfortunately we really do need internet in some form (beyond work, so many things require internet, like accessing certain public services and healthcare) and I think it should be a public utility like water and electricity. But I donā€™t need to spend $200/mo like we used to on stationary internet service.

The other thing I need internet for is staying connected. Even pre-covid, most of my favorite people were far away. But now that everyone acts like the pandemic is over and Iā€™m still very high risk for death from covid, I will probably have to continue to isolate for the rest of my life. Without the internet, my partner and I wouldnā€™t have any support network at all.

I recently went through the motions to disconnect myself from the borderline-addiction to tech/screens. Iā€™ve already been off the socials for years (this site is as social as I get now), but itā€™s too easy to mindlessly scroll as an escape. Sometimes I still need to do that (sometimes when chronic pain is too bad, itā€™s my best distraction), but Iā€™ve been attempting to learn new things. I taught myself to crochet a few months ago. Recently started learning embroidery. Last week, I bought a couple different seeds and planted them in pots outside. I may not stick with any new thing I do/learn, but it feels a lot more mentally satisfying than just aimlessly spending time online like I used to.

5

lettuceLeafer wrote

As someone who loves rejecting many convineinces I almost never reject the internet and computers even though I find them to honestly be a harmful addiction. Mainly as a way to permanently be reacting to stimuli rather than thinking for oneself which is difficult and often frustrating and painful. Like pulling off a bandaid but I just refuse to take it off.

Which would be one thing but I never feel it would be beneficial. For non work purposes the internet I still view is so important as a way to culturally assimilate oneself in a mindset where liberal hegemony isn't the norm. Without the internet I would not really have a culture where my views are accepted and would be far more alone is sticking to ones values. Which makes it far more difficult and upsetting. Not to mention access to stories which encourage and vitalize ones vigour in showing stories of success and joy.

Two the internet is such a profound wealth of knowledge that rejecting it I feel would massively be a loss. It so easy to keep your views challenged wit alternative view point and access just so much information to learn. Idk I feel I would be far more ignorant without the constant growth the internet illicits.

Id love to hear how other use the internet and manage this dicotomy bc it's one I struggle to find a desirable answer.

4

Quicksilver wrote

Reply to by ChaosAnarchy

I've slowly deleted a lot of my social media, with the most recent one being Facebook, and before that Instagram and Reddit. I was surprised with how easy it was to forget about them honestly, with how much of a build up I gave it. It's sorta nice just not being inundated all the time by them.

I wouldn't say I live in a more offline world necessarily. Outside of any gaming I do, im still quite heavy usage on YouTube and their environment (their new shorts aspect is how I spend most of my free time, it's lethal). But it'll probably be the next thing if I can build up the willpower.

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mima wrote

Lol, what a garbage analogy.

Not a fan of Apple, but I'd rather take Safari's 6 month development cycle than deal with this "agile" bullshit from Google and Mozilla.

If anything, it's Chrome that is closer to IE that it is pushing for its own standards and demands compatibility from every website. Except this time the standards are open, and agile development is pushed instead of a feature-driven one. Microsoft's mistake was being too slow in pushing major updates and not caring about open standards. Google learned from that very well, and combined with its advertising power, was easily able to take over the browser market.

4

syster wrote

I asume you mean the ranking in a search machine index?

If so, keep in mind that this is not the only means new user will discover your website. A tag on a wall to share a website with local information might be more effective then paying for google adds. If you're the only website in that city with tags on wall, your local ranking compared to other websites should greatly increase.

...I'm pretty sure that doesn't answer your question, but maybe helps you to rethink your question. :-p.

4

moonlune wrote

From the most efficient to the least efficient:

  • Pay Google.

  • have lots of visitors

  • be linked to from multiple other websites.

  • Have lots of keywords

If your work depends on the website, it'd reckon paying Google is a good investment.

3

Highway OP wrote

This corresponds to the middle and end of the Internet atheist movement, and some of the same dynamics I discussed in my article there apply here as well, especially the slow shift from 2000s-era "argument culture" to 2010s-era "echo culture". The very early Internet had pro-argument norms; it was your god-given right to march into any blog or forum you wanted and tell the people there why they were wrong. Partly this was the inevitable effect of everyone on the early Internet being the sort of programming nerds willing to try this weird new invention. And partly it came from a utopian philosophy where the Internet was going to be a new medium that united humanity regardless of nation or creed in a great Republic Of The Intellect, or whatever. Maybe it was even partly due to naivete - a lot of people hadn't really met anyone who thought differently from them before, and assumed that changing peopleā€™s minds would be really easy. For whatever reason, the early Internet was a place for polite but insistent debate, and early websites centered around the needs of a debating community. The most obvious example was TalkOrigins' massive alphabetized database of arguments against creationist claims, with the explicit goal of helping people win debates with creationists.

Gradually throughout the 2000s this transitioned to "echo culture", where people hung out in ideologically sorted communities and discussed things from a shared perspective.

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