Are we in the heyday of the Internet?

[Vdubchaos]

I'm at a point where Internet is no longer useful to me. I think of it as a catalog of information, when I need it.

Kind of bored of it all to be honest.

And it's even becoming bad at the catalog thing. Sure there is TONS of information out there, but you have to sort thru a whole lot of BS to get the good stuff out.

TOO much information is not good either.

NOTHING is good when taken to the extreme.

 

[ViviTheMage]

1997-2007 I would call the golden age.

agreed ... off to darknet!

 

[Sonikku]

It was great before the corporate world started cracking down on it with their iron grip.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

I think this is actually when I found the internet to be the most exciting. I felt like every time I got on I was discovering something new and cool.

Sure, the content is no comparison to what is available now, but the atmosphere was different.

Would I want the internet to go back there? No, but sometimes I do miss the novelty of the earlier years.

Pretty much how I feel. I remember when I was like 12 or 13, and I became obsessed with this game called RollerCoaster Tycoon. This was 1999 or 2000. And I went on Homestead and started making a click and drag built website for it. And there were thousands of others doing the same exact thing across other free hosts. And there were all these "top site lists" that you could put your site on and try to get voted up so you got more traffic. And put up the little banners o your site "vote for me in the Amazing RCT Top 25", and etc. Fun stuff...

Also, back then the internet felt like a very nice luxury and/or convenience. Now it is a requirement. I get all crazy when the internet goes down for an extended period of time (extended being longer than 5 minutes now).

 

[BurnItDwn]

Personally I didn't have high speed then like I have it now. The last 5 years or so has been amazing in that regard. Everything right at the fingertips and RIGHT NOW.

I spent 98-99 on campus with T3, I was an LPB.

Then 99-00 year I lived in an apartment, with 33.6k dial up!

After that I was able to get DSL or Cable Modem pretty consistently ...

 

[Ganiy]

Everyone will have google boobie implants and women will rule the earth.

Oh no, lol.

Those days passed already. Ten years ago that was a real heyday of the Internet, but not nowadays. That's not so interesting and sometimes even depressing. We do not use it so often today in comparison with past days.

 

[OverVolt]

Going by the youtube comments it seems using the internet isn't as prestigious as it used to be.

 

[Red Storm]

Sum up this thread: "It was great when I could pirate stuff!"

 

[OverVolt]

Sum up this thread: "It was great when I could pirate stuff!"

Napster was pretty great before the anti-piracy stuff.

 

[n7]

Nope, that was long ago. Now there's too many big companies involved.

 

[Doppel]

I've been on the net since 1995 and it has never been better than it is now.

True, a decade ago getting music or movies was much easier; it was "illegal", but nobody cared. In the US, at least, it's riskier to do that, though by no means particularly difficult. I do think that will change: it will be increasingly risky and fringe, partly due to better enforcement, but also less demand from consumers as online offers more.

Compare today's internet to one from, say, a decade ago. Today we have:

1) High quality online videos following a single standard (YouTube). Remember Real Player? Online video sucked, to be kind

2) Intelligent search and tons more content. Prior to google online search sucked ass. Google + sites like wikipedia have opened up so much information it is ridiculous. I can find articles about the most esoteric of matters. We take for granted now that basically any kind of issue or problem we have has already been discussed online and there is help there for free. This has only been accessible to the world population for about the last 10-15 years.

3) Much cleaner experience. Back in the day many sites were still experimenting with nonsense like flash, images all over the damn place, pop up windows galore. Now the internet is ad free (Chrome + ad block). Sites also run faster and more reliably.

4) Better accessibility. It's now available everywhere. We are no loner checking email only when at home and have fully featured websites that work very well on mobile.

 

[Rudee]

The internet was cooler back 10+ years ago.

Yeah, before every teenager had a cellphone and was posting pics of themselves all over the internet making annoying duckfaces.

 

[Red Storm]

I agree it's better than it ever has been. Tons and tons of information at your fingertips, you can stream just about any sport in the world, lots of ways to connect and share stuff with your friends. Online video is way better.

If all you did was pirate everything then yeah I guess you could say it's not as good...

 

[CountZero]

The heyday of the web has passed. When you would just "surf" hopping from site to site animated gifs slowly loading. Now surfing involves staying on one site and upping their click count. Plus the novelty is somewhat gone. It used to be "wow, there's a site for this, amazing!" now it is a foregone conclusion that somewhere there is a site for everything or at the very least a wikipedia entry. The web is mostly a venue for getting to exactly what you want not exploring.

That being said I'm not sure if we have yet reached the heyday of the internet. I still find it somewhat amazing to come home, turn on my TV scroll through Netflix and just start watching a movie or tv show. Streaming audio to your receiver. Downloading games instead of needing a disc. I have a hard time imagining what we can continue to do as speeds and bandwidth continue to increase but I'm excited to see it.

However, much like others have said, I'm not sure that exciting future will actually manifest itself. The powers that be were a bit slow to recognize the potential of the internet but now they fully realize the potential and are doing all they can to thwart anything that might be disruptive.

 

[darkewaffle]

In terms of quantity and mass appeal, certainly. In terms of... color/breadth? Probably not the right words, I think that's passed by somewhat. I think the internet was more vibrant ten/fifteen years ago before the true advent of the huge 'hub' sites, FB/YT/Twitter/Google/etc, and the ways those sites have impacted the way people communicate and condensed users. Though that could also be due in no small part to me being ten years older as well now.

 

[Eureka]

They heyday only has passed for those who live in a fantasy of their own wild west. For the rest of us, the internet is only getting better. Never before have I been able to get so much free instant music streaming (Spotify,et.al), instant videos (Netflix,et.al), shopping (Amazon Prime, eBay), social networking (Facebook, Google Hangouts), and instant information as quickly and as cheaply as they are now. Sure, it makes it harder for those who make the internet their primary life, but I use it as a way to connect to other people in the real world. Hell, even when I'm trying to live my life on the internet it's way better (online multiplayer is more featured and faster than ever). And if it takes corporate influence to get to this, I'll live with it.

 

[Ketchup]

They heyday only has passed for those who live in a fantasy of their own wild west. For the rest of us, the internet is only getting better. Never before have I been able to get so much free instant music streaming (Spotify,et.al), instant videos (Netflix,et.al), shopping (Amazon Prime, eBay), social networking (Facebook, Google Hangouts), and instant information as quickly and as cheaply as they are now. Sure, it makes it harder for those who make the internet their primary life, but I use it as a way to connect to other people in the real world. Hell, even when I'm trying to live my life on the internet it's way better (online multiplayer is more featured and faster than ever). And if it takes corporate influence to get to this, I'll live with it.

I find myself with you and Doppel here. Years ago it was a little more on the fun side, but now it is useful, fast, and entertaining. Now that I am in my 30's, those are much more important to me now, than the fun factor was back then.

Many of you talk about big companies. Based on past history in other industries, I truly believe the large corporation and governments will continue their invasion, making our kinds and grandkids jealous of what we once had. We'll see.

 

[poofyhairguy]

If all you did was pirate everything then yeah I guess you could say it's not as good...

By that standard my personal heyday was 2011. I had 20+megs down with no cap, the Usenet was picking up steam with content but no takedowns, and the software really came together. I hoarded like one of those freak shows on TV that year.

But honestly even for pirates its not THAT bad. I can still get everything I want, even if I have to pay a little more. And I LOVE illegal flash streams of my favorite sports teams that simply weren't there in say 2007.

 

[indy2878]

The internet was funner back then (late 90's to early 2000's)
Mainly because technology was not as well developed yet
(and rather very expensive such as those pricey Unix workstations…
and isdn, T1 and T3 lines....)
It was also funner because it was a new piece of technology for
most of the population.

You HAD to be creative in putting out information whether
its making a personal website for geocities, downloading large
computer files, making useful sw which FORCED you to actually be creative and productive and very good with hw & sw constraints set in place….


For me it was also fun probably because I was younger and
immature back then and ignorant of how things worked.
So I just felt the need to freely explore all over the place…..

Nowadays, we have high speed broadband speeds, high end GPUs,
multi core cpus, plethora of programming languages and freely available
code to do whatever you want, we're not as restricted, FB, youtube,
endless adverts at every page, etc….
This is good and all, but
We kind of take things faster, better, more featured filled for granted
nowadays as well, maybe even TOO much at times though…

So progress is both good and bad I guess. It depends how you look at it….

These are just my 2 cents for this thread….

 

[Red Squirrel]

That is so true. I think of the days of dialup, every time nobody was on the phone and I was able to actually dial and get a good clean connection, it was a priviledge. I downloaded what I could during this time, and did what I could, and any info I needed I'd grab and save. Then when I had to go offline I could do whatever it is I was doing, with the info I had, whether it was programming, or other stuff. Then ADSL came out, and that changed a lot, but since I was still very new to computers it was still in the exploration mode and the thought of being always on was so awesome.

Now, we take it for granted. Heck, I just got fibre recently, I am currently reliving the exact feeling I had when I got ADSL. But even that novelty will probably wear off after a while.