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Topic |
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The Balance Of Judgement
Senior Member
Ivory Coast
1006 Posts |
 Posted - 26 Jun 2003 : 23:50:27
Who will agree that slowly, the internet that we once knew is dying. I don't have the energy to type it all out, and if I did it would probably bore you out, but who has noticed it's slowly dying, that our privacy is no longer there, that there are more harmfull people than good people online? All the sickos online who want to nab kids or who want to see what's in your computer or who want your money iether by exposing you to porn ads, popups or other garbage or by those who would squat areas and make things not community based.I think the net sucks and is dying unless someone gives it some serious CPR and open heart surgery. |
Fedorenko
Junior Member
Australia
463 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 01:14:04
Im not thinking dieing, more of a mid life crisis.Good ideas usually are created by crazy people, go figure... |
Metrophage
New Member
Tonga
54 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 01:22:05
I am relatively new to the net ('98), but I did enjoy my early childhood terminal experiences in the early 1980'z quite a bit.
Ov course there is so much more crap than there was before! More people, which has dragged the signal to noise ratio way into the noise region, in my opinion. I constantly try to interest many ov my friends around here in the information on the net, recycling old tech, and in really doing some networking. The reactions I have encountered have often been quite peculiar. Many kids i talk with think that a network is something you FIND, rather than something you DO. Many tell me either that it is passe to make networks yourself or in the community, or that it is too much work.
The real difference is that if anybody wants to make a network, they can. I find usable computers on the street quite often, cards, cable, etc. There are many excellent free operating systems, utilities. By far most ov the software being developed is in the UNIX community. More good stuph going on now than ever, in many ways. What I find disconcerting is that many if not most people simply don't care. Most people have some superstitios notion ov what "computers" and "the internet" are, and are content with that. So instead ov lots ov academics, hardcore businesspeople, and curious folks- you find drek.
The push to try to make computer networks into something like a "broadcast" network is obvious. Broadcast media fuels itself in an endless circle-jerk ov hype and distraction, and strives for distribution. To anyone who has any experience, this is quaint and almost humorous! Typical attempts to impose industrial-age thinking on quantum-information technologies. Such practices are obviously not to the benefit ov your average person, yet the masses often go along anyway.
Unlike radio or television, where huge amounts ov electrical and financial power are required to get any- often rediculous- messages any appreciable distance, digital networks suffer from no such limitations. It may take some time before most people catch on to this… I know many musicans who think they would be more successful to sell their talent for mass media distribution (always for less than they are worth), than to simply put their music online for nearly instantaneous distribution anywhere. Old paradigms die hard, and the industrial age is not even all that old yet.
There is obviously little future to broadcast media, despite the inflated hype. Those who actually DO stuph use the best tools that they can, to do what it is that they do. I think the cat is out ov the bag. Even if I was thrown into some DMCA, proprietary post-tcp/ip world- there is no reason why I can't dust off the older tools and communicate with others. Groups like the Trusted Business Computing Alliance are actively and unambiguously trying to kill the net as it has been. They can succeed in making some kind ov glorified world wide Genie/ Prodigy -type service, but I don't think it'll last. And whether or not it does I can still initiate connections with people anywhere, provided that they are interested in communicating.
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G4from128k
Full Member
USA
873 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 07:23:07
SPAM:Spam is way out of hand. My wife has a 10 year old email addy that now averages a 150 spams per day. Filters catch about 90% of junk, but those spammers keep coming up with new ways to misspell every pornographic word in the book. Paradoxically, the best feature of the net is the worst feature of the net. The net is too cheap -- the cost of sending email is too low. It costs nearly nothing for a spammer to send out 100,000 copies of an e-mail. If they earn an average of just a penny an addy from mail-opens/click-throughs, they get $1000. Not bad for just hitting the "send" button. I wish email required a refundable deposit that is set by the recipient. If the recipient is your friend, they refund the deposit. If you are sending spam, you lose the deposit. You might still get commerically driven email, but it would be much more selective. WEB = TV As for the net becoming more like a broadcast, this too is an ugly trend. Sadly, I think too many people just want passive entertainment. For too many people, figuring out what they want and where to click is too much bother. So then we get crap like Flash that makes the web just like TV. I also think basic economics of the internet is a big driver toward the broadcast model. Although it is cheap to serve up content (bandwidth and servers are inexpensive), creating good content is still labor intensive. If the labor is free,then it is no big deal. But if one has a business and must pay a team of content creators, then money is a big deal. It is drop dead easy to spend $10,000 for labor on a nice site and I am sure that even a small web-based company is easily burning through more than $100k/yr on content creation. This $10k or $100k cost of content drives the need for eyeballs, and lots of them. Internet ad rates are pretty low and click-through rates are in the dumps. So if even if a site can get 10 cents per visitor, they still need 100,000 to a million vistors just to pay for the employees (forget paying for the office, electricity, or paying back money from investors). And if a company can only average a penny a visitor (low ad rates and poor click-throughs), then even a cheap site needs a million visitors. Thus, pure content sites are inevitably driven to the broadcast model of lowest common denominator junk to reach the widest possible audience. The only exceptions are those websites that get large revenues per visitor (like a e-commerce site where many people spend many dollars) or a volunteer/amateur/hobbyist site where the labor is free. Places like Applefritter and 68kMLA fall into the free labor category -- the members create the content. DRM/DCMA/RIAA This is a mess of everyone's own making. Its a big battle between the greed of the file sharers and the greed of the content creators. It also doesn't help that the economics of content creation interact very poorly with the existence of too many people who want to create stuff. I won't argue about who isn't paying their fair share and who is taking more than their fair share -- enough blame to go around to everyone. All I will say is that as a person who is paid to create content, I would be pretty pissed if people stole my stuff and didn't pay for it. If DRM/DCMA/RIAA interferes with my rights to create and disseminate content using whatever business model I choose, then it is a bad thing. But, if all it does is let each creator/publisher enforce their own model, then that is OK. If some companies put ultra-restrictive DRM policies on their stuff, then I would expect them to do more poorly in the market. If others sell their content on more friendly, fair-use terms, I would expect them to do better. I, personally, do not believe that anyone has an unalienable right to hear the lastest Metallica tracks -- so if Metallica wants to sell its songs for $9.95 for the one-time right to hear the music, then that's OK with me and I will listen to somebody else. Interesting conversation, everyone. Have a Nice Day! G4From128k by Day: Mild-Mannered Engineer and Trapeze(tm) Artist
by Night: Colonel of Truth, Justice, and the Macintosh Way
Reserve Officer in 68kMLA Cantankerous Coot Contingent
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The Balance Of Judgement
Senior Member
Ivory Coast
1006 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 10:10:02
I agree.One of the biggest myths about the Internet was that it was a gold mine filled to the brim and all you had to do was get it. The internet is like Communism. The concept was good, but when you actually get to the execution, things go all wrong. Today everyone is battling for online supremecy, and all the free stuff is gone because slowly people realize it's not actually free. Like the stupidist things I have seen online are ads, which people get paid to be clicked, which advertise a site that offers free stuff, which in turn has more ads that offer free stuff. Nothing is more idiotic. But people seldom make sense in this way. I think even if it means the internet has to be shut down for a bit, it needs to be completely rewoked and new guidlines in place, guidlines that don't change from country to country. I was talking to Da Penguin before and said we need a UN-like organization for the internet, that would be above the goverment etc., but still report to goverment. Otherwise nothing ever gets done.
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maclover5
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Australia
5830 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 19:06:54
Yes, the Internet that we once knew is dying. Unfortunately, as a 1997 introductee to the internet, I am rather new to the Internet, and have not experienced the wonderful internet of 1995/1996, with no ads, and simple pages. However, i try and relive as much of those days as possible by using the Internet WayBack machine, as the Internet was a lot better back in, say, 1997 than it is now. Not as many ads, not as much spam, and everything was much better and faster. Now we have tons and tons of fancy but slow flash intros that kill old computers and human bandwidth, more ads than a cheap PC magazine, and whackjobs whose sole purpose in life is to seriously bork things up. Please, oh please make thsi new "Internet 2" that we've been hearing about for ages a reality, as this one is getting old."**** em" - Jobs in regards to customers
Warrior maclover5
68kMLA
Official 68kMLA Detective 
Number of 68ks Liberated: 7
Number of Contraband (PPC) Liberated from the Dumpster: 1 |
The Lightning Stalker
Full Member
USA
747 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 20:11:06
Sure, the Internet is getting worse as a whole, but almost all of the sites that make it great are still there, they're just harder to find in the mess. There's plenty of newer ones that are great, too, like howstuffworks.com, even though it has ads, but I just use Popup Zero Pro to get rid of the popups and AdFree to get rid of most of the ads.Even with all the e-Commerce sites there are, the Internet is still an incredible source of free information, of which there is more and more all the time. I can't recall all of the different things I have learned over the years that I wouldn't know about if it wasn't there. For instance, Tesla coils, how hydrogen peroxide is made, etc. Just this week I went to npr.com to find a local National Public Radio station, and found a satetite photo website (hosted my Microsoft, nonetheless) Sure, the Internet as a whole is getting worse, but more usefull information is being added every day just as more junk and e-Greed is being added, although at a faster pace. The Lightning Stalker Performa 631CD, 7.5.5
LC III Mail Server
Q610
Q650 6400/180 40/1.6G/512k L2/enet/video-in/TV
7600/120 '604/233, 80/1.2G & 4G, 9.2.2 (Main Mac) Lady Smith Apples:
Apple IIc 5.25"
2 Apple IIe |
The Lightning Stalker
Full Member
USA
747 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 20:19:35
And here's what I have to say about SPAM:I don't get any. Here's why...
Never give out your e-Mail address to any companies unless you have to (they have to notify me of something via e-Mail - Ex. eBay, 68kmla, newsletters, etc.) Yahoo!, Aol and Microsft sell your e-Mail address to third parties. If you have Hotmail, Yahoo! or Aol Mail, you will get SPAM. This is how Hotmail defrays its costs! I never use my real e-Mail with usenet clients due to rumors that people can "suck" your e-Mail address from newsgroups. Never fill out the e-Mail address line on any questionaire, survey or application unless you're absolutely sure you can trust this organization not to send you SPAM. |
thequietman
Junior Member
Canada
127 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 21:03:33
My biggest disappointment with the internet is the lack of information. Anyone remember when the internet used to be called "The Information Superhighway"? It was going to revolutionize the way we did research and make hard-to-find info freely available to anyone with a computer. Have you tried to find some info for a project lately? Somewhere around page 12 of the search results I get tired of wading through ads, online stores, and all the other unrelated commercial sites. Let's say you're looking for info on how alkaline batteries work. Your search results: Several thousand online stores that are selling alkaline batteries, instructions on how to install batteries in various toys or accessories, and (if you're lucky) a small technical definition that no one but a chemistry prof would understand. Even if there is some info on the net, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Commercialization has definitely gotten way out of hand. |
cory5412
68KMLA Comrade-in-Arms
USA
4679 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2003 : 21:39:52
My big problem with the internet is that I haven't had the chance to do as much with is as other people have said... in a book I read aparently in 1996 you could get domains - as many as you wanted - for free... and for life.Then domains were costing $$ Then "mass domain buying" by linking companies and people who buy last names trying to sell them comes... eMails and Instant messages..
I think that peoples' methods for things like this is OBNOXIOUS!!!
People have often started on the internet with one free eMail, often associated with the eMail is a Messaging "solution" Then they discover that noone tries to kill you if you get more than one... so they start getting more and more different names... then there's this "pornography"
I don't want that junk and the people who do can go to an anonomous group...
the people who make it don't deserve computers anyway. I think that overall the technology of the internet is improving all the time and is great... - when used in moderation... Car manufacturers' websites are positively LOADED with bloated graphics and flash animations and movies... same with manufacturers of boats and just about everything else... it's kind of funny to think that you can take a virtual tour of a dell computer... on a computer... Official 68k videographer
Official MLA TourGuide
"I'm just a normal computer geek who somehow landed a social life"
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Gothikon
Full Member
Australia
537 Posts |
Posted - 28 Jun 2003 : 04:47:11
quote:
Sure, the Internet is getting worse as a whole, but almost all of the sites that make it great are still there,
This is exactly what I was going to say. Sure there is more crap, more spam and more ads (although it looks like there is some serious cracking down on these to about to start up) but the crap doesn't replace the good stuff, although it may make it harder to find on occasion. The internet is an ever expanding space it's not limited in size. The percentage of good stuff my fall but the actual amount doesn't. --------
LC 2, LC 3, Q605, Perf 638, Colour Classic (160 603e) 6100, 7200, PTP 225 (Quad 604), PM 9600, G4 Cube |
maclover5
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Australia
5830 Posts |
Posted - 28 Jun 2003 : 06:45:06
quote:
Anyone remember when the internet used to be called "The Information Superhighway"?
It still is!  Only now, it has a lot of corrigation, and a LOT of potholes to get stuck in! "**** em" - Jobs in regards to customers
Warrior maclover5
68kMLA
Official 68kMLA Detective
Number of 68ks Liberated: 7
Number of Contraband (PPC) Liberated from the Dumpster: 1 |
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Who Can Agree?
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