The Internet Isn’t Meant To Be So Small
May 4, 2023 3:38 AM Subscribe
It is worth remembering that the internet wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be six boring men with too much money creating spaces that no one likes but everyone is forced to use because those men have driven every other form of online existence into the ground. From Kelsey McKinney, writing for Defector.
posted by kliuless at 4:04 AM on May 4, 2023 [58 favorites]
RSS solved too many problems to be allowed to live. Most notably how hostile it was to the ideas of creator and audience capture.
posted by mhoye at 4:42 AM on May 4, 2023 [46 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 4:42 AM on May 4, 2023 [46 favorites]
yeah the total lack of regulation and private ownership of all the infrastructure (even the parts developed with public money) really werent supposed to allow this to happen. really! its just a coincidence and like, the fault of some bad dudes. definitely not a structural problem.
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 4:48 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 4:48 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
I still use RSS feeds, with Feedly, and any time I mention this fact people look at me like I'm an alien. I can't imagine not having them. They by and large present me with a mostly curated list of content from publishes I've selected, usually stripped away of most digital clutter.
I can see why the monetized Internet hates it.
The thought of being stuck just with whatever Facebook or Twitter's algorithms feed me is awful, and so I'm quite fearful that RSS feeds themselves will eventually dry up, too.
posted by synecdoche at 4:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [75 favorites]
I can see why the monetized Internet hates it.
The thought of being stuck just with whatever Facebook or Twitter's algorithms feed me is awful, and so I'm quite fearful that RSS feeds themselves will eventually dry up, too.
posted by synecdoche at 4:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [75 favorites]
Great read, thanks.
And if anyone's got a Bluesky invite they can MeMail me, I'd be most appreciative! I'm very curious.
posted by dobbs at 5:04 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
And if anyone's got a Bluesky invite they can MeMail me, I'd be most appreciative! I'm very curious.
posted by dobbs at 5:04 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Call me cynical, but it's hard for me to believe that tech stack funded by Jack Dorsey and helmed by a former cryptocurrency developer is going to solve any problem I care about.
posted by mhoye at 5:09 AM on May 4, 2023 [67 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 5:09 AM on May 4, 2023 [67 favorites]
People simultaneously want small, integrated, curated communities, AND they want everyone they know to be there. These are incompatible ideals. Enchanted forests are lovely because they’re known to only a few. Any public forum that includes everyone is going to be a noisy, messy, busy street, and the tone there is never going to be as welcoming and supportive as we deserve.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:35 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by caution live frogs at 5:35 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
And if anyone's got a Bluesky invite they can MeMail me, I'd be most appreciative! I'm very curious.
I am too - but, currently exploring Mastodon. It's not as fluid for some aspects of the UX, for example, the web client has issues for me when trying to Follow someone on a different server, so... lots of copy+paste. (But, sometimes the button does work... inconsistent)
But - I love the lack of 'algorithmic' feed (which, I am sure won't be the case with Bluesky) - otherwise, it has all the features of a microblogging/posting social network that I need. Plus, it currently reminds me of BBS, old usenet culture - and is filled with far more interesting people and posts than Twitter ever was for me.
posted by rozcakj at 5:36 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
I am too - but, currently exploring Mastodon. It's not as fluid for some aspects of the UX, for example, the web client has issues for me when trying to Follow someone on a different server, so... lots of copy+paste. (But, sometimes the button does work... inconsistent)
But - I love the lack of 'algorithmic' feed (which, I am sure won't be the case with Bluesky) - otherwise, it has all the features of a microblogging/posting social network that I need. Plus, it currently reminds me of BBS, old usenet culture - and is filled with far more interesting people and posts than Twitter ever was for me.
posted by rozcakj at 5:36 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
One thing that was great about Google Reader is that it was easy to share interesting blogposts, and that the shares of others were unobtrusive. I found some absolutely amazing essays that way. And what I found was entirely because friends of mine shared them, so it had a character of its own. I learned a lot about the really old days of the internet from one friend, another was really plugged into gaming discourse, and a third was really into nature writing, just to name a few examples. It made me feel like I knew those people. It’s the only place, other than MetaFilter, where I’ve felt like I belonged to a community, the only place online other than this one here where I made friends that transferred easily into the offline world.
posted by Kattullus at 5:38 AM on May 4, 2023 [27 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 5:38 AM on May 4, 2023 [27 favorites]
I still use RSS feeds, with Feedly, and any time I mention this fact people look at me like I'm an alien.
Most of the content I consume is via RSS feeds these days - as of today 123 of them. And I read them via newsboat, which is a terminal client. URLs get expanded, if necessary, via elinks. For a while, I tried running a local FreshRSS instance to get that browser-based Feedly look and feel (and in-line graphics). It worked fine, but I had been using newsboat for too long and am just used to the keystrokes and flow.
The Old Internet is still very much alive and well. Things like Mastodon, which push towards decentralization, give me tremendous hope in its future. Getting people - especially younger people who have only known the algorithmically-driven walled gardens - to see what is still very much there is the hill I'll keep choosing to die on. Some days it feels positively subversive.
posted by jquinby at 5:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [21 favorites]
Most of the content I consume is via RSS feeds these days - as of today 123 of them. And I read them via newsboat, which is a terminal client. URLs get expanded, if necessary, via elinks. For a while, I tried running a local FreshRSS instance to get that browser-based Feedly look and feel (and in-line graphics). It worked fine, but I had been using newsboat for too long and am just used to the keystrokes and flow.
The Old Internet is still very much alive and well. Things like Mastodon, which push towards decentralization, give me tremendous hope in its future. Getting people - especially younger people who have only known the algorithmically-driven walled gardens - to see what is still very much there is the hill I'll keep choosing to die on. Some days it feels positively subversive.
posted by jquinby at 5:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [21 favorites]
The Old Internet is still very much alive and well.
* Nods * I mean, blogs are still very much a thing, for one thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:00 AM on May 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
* Nods * I mean, blogs are still very much a thing, for one thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:00 AM on May 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
I love the lack of 'algorithmic' feed
That's the big plus of Mastodon for me too. (I'm joannemerriam@mefi.social.) I follow a lot of hashtags, which helps with discoverability.
I revived my blog when Elon bought Twitter, but I don't really think anybody is reading it. I suspect it's more a place for me to backup stuff I'm already posting to Facebook or Mastodon and don't want to lose.
I never used Google Reader, but had a mental list of 7 or 8 websites I visited regularly which shared a lot of stuff, places like 3WA and Poets&Writers that went away again. I miss those places, and Metafilter is my primary place online now, along with Facebook to keep up with friends and shitposts about whichever animal the internet is obsessed about this week.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
That's the big plus of Mastodon for me too. (I'm joannemerriam@mefi.social.) I follow a lot of hashtags, which helps with discoverability.
I revived my blog when Elon bought Twitter, but I don't really think anybody is reading it. I suspect it's more a place for me to backup stuff I'm already posting to Facebook or Mastodon and don't want to lose.
I never used Google Reader, but had a mental list of 7 or 8 websites I visited regularly which shared a lot of stuff, places like 3WA and Poets&Writers that went away again. I miss those places, and Metafilter is my primary place online now, along with Facebook to keep up with friends and shitposts about whichever animal the internet is obsessed about this week.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
Is it ocelots again yet? Seems to me like it's about time for ocelots.
posted by flabdablet at 6:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 6:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
People simultaneously want small, integrated, curated communities, AND they want everyone they know to be there.
everyone wants their small integrated community to consist of world leaders, famous artists and billionaires.
alternate formulation: everyone wants to believe they are part of the small integrated community of world leaders, famous artists, and billionaires.
posted by logicpunk at 6:19 AM on May 4, 2023 [19 favorites]
Around 1996/97, the one thing I couldn't wait to get was cable internet because I wanted to run a server, just like all the cool kids were doing. Sure I had a homepage and 5-10mb of space through my ISP but it didn't feel like I was truly a part of the internet. It felt more like renting a storage locker.
I wanted to have a place that was my own which wasn't just a URL with a a tilda (~) attached to someone else's domain name. Most of the people I knew through IRC were in college and had dorm room LAN connections that came with static, publicly accessible IPs (well, it was the mid-1990s). They were doing all sorts of cool stuff like running their own domains and webservers. Dialup sucked, and I thought getting a "real" internet connection with a (presumably static) public-IP address was the future and a gateway to being able to do all sorts of cool stuff.
By the time I got cable internet, things were much more locked down and the passive internet had become firmly entrenched. The terms of service clearly said "no servers" and the ISP did lots of things to discourage them (asymmetric upload/downloads, crap reverse dns hostnames, dynamic ips). Instead of my desktop becoming another node on the Internet, I was still just a consumer albeit one with faster bandwidth.
(And considering what a nightmare maintaining security on publicly-facing surfaces is, I'm actually kind of glad things worked out that way, though I do miss the "old days" when it wasn't as much of a concern)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:20 AM on May 4, 2023 [15 favorites]
I wanted to have a place that was my own which wasn't just a URL with a a tilda (~) attached to someone else's domain name. Most of the people I knew through IRC were in college and had dorm room LAN connections that came with static, publicly accessible IPs (well, it was the mid-1990s). They were doing all sorts of cool stuff like running their own domains and webservers. Dialup sucked, and I thought getting a "real" internet connection with a (presumably static) public-IP address was the future and a gateway to being able to do all sorts of cool stuff.
By the time I got cable internet, things were much more locked down and the passive internet had become firmly entrenched. The terms of service clearly said "no servers" and the ISP did lots of things to discourage them (asymmetric upload/downloads, crap reverse dns hostnames, dynamic ips). Instead of my desktop becoming another node on the Internet, I was still just a consumer albeit one with faster bandwidth.
(And considering what a nightmare maintaining security on publicly-facing surfaces is, I'm actually kind of glad things worked out that way, though I do miss the "old days" when it wasn't as much of a concern)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:20 AM on May 4, 2023 [15 favorites]
everyone wants their small integrated community to consist of world leaders, famous artists and billionaires.
I'm not 100% ruling out famous artists because I can imagine some of them got famous as a side effect. World leaders and billionaires, though, can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. I want nothing to do with any of them. More than enough disordered personalities in my life already without deliberately seeking out worse ones.
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 AM on May 4, 2023 [11 favorites]
I'm not 100% ruling out famous artists because I can imagine some of them got famous as a side effect. World leaders and billionaires, though, can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. I want nothing to do with any of them. More than enough disordered personalities in my life already without deliberately seeking out worse ones.
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 AM on May 4, 2023 [11 favorites]
This article was so spot-on. I don't do this often on here, but here's a rant.
Years ago after the first wave of popular bloggers became popular, some of them became Speakers and Consultants and created Conferences to show the next wave how to gain fame from Blogging just like they did. And then they said bloggers need to toss away the general diary format and go Niche! Niche blogs are where the dollars are at! And then so many bloggers (many of them parents who were women-identifying) did just that and found that their content, audience, and scant money from Ad platforms dried up once the kids got older. It's difficult but not impossible to find generalist blogs from women anymore. You see parenting blogs, food blogs, fashion blogs, fitness blogs, but to find a blog written by a woman with a little bit of all of those elements plus some musing about a favorite TV show or a crummy day at work? Difficult.
Other first-wave bloggers created Hosting Platforms and Ad Platforms to host other peoples' content, promising more visibility without worrying about that weird nerd thing called RSS. They also promised Monetization, which became the goal for so many people. But the content didn't totally belong to the bloggers anymore, and once the platform creators made their money, they sold or abandoned their platforms for the next big entrepreneurial thing. And the lion's share of ad revenue went to larger blogs via special contracts while everyone else was left to split the remaining 10%.
And somewhere along the way, Consultants (now working for Ad Agencies and sites like Instagram and Pinterest) told the next wave of bloggers (who were not starting to be called Creators) to pivot to posting giant photos and short videos because people don't like to read and that blogs were dead.
Blogs, in their first glorious form of weblogs of how people live, are not dead. RSS still exists (I also use Feedly) but I have so much side-eye to that first crop of bloggers who, knowingly or not, helped create this environment where "six boring men" control most of the online eyeballs.
posted by kimberussell at 6:24 AM on May 4, 2023 [30 favorites]
Years ago after the first wave of popular bloggers became popular, some of them became Speakers and Consultants and created Conferences to show the next wave how to gain fame from Blogging just like they did. And then they said bloggers need to toss away the general diary format and go Niche! Niche blogs are where the dollars are at! And then so many bloggers (many of them parents who were women-identifying) did just that and found that their content, audience, and scant money from Ad platforms dried up once the kids got older. It's difficult but not impossible to find generalist blogs from women anymore. You see parenting blogs, food blogs, fashion blogs, fitness blogs, but to find a blog written by a woman with a little bit of all of those elements plus some musing about a favorite TV show or a crummy day at work? Difficult.
Other first-wave bloggers created Hosting Platforms and Ad Platforms to host other peoples' content, promising more visibility without worrying about that weird nerd thing called RSS. They also promised Monetization, which became the goal for so many people. But the content didn't totally belong to the bloggers anymore, and once the platform creators made their money, they sold or abandoned their platforms for the next big entrepreneurial thing. And the lion's share of ad revenue went to larger blogs via special contracts while everyone else was left to split the remaining 10%.
And somewhere along the way, Consultants (now working for Ad Agencies and sites like Instagram and Pinterest) told the next wave of bloggers (who were not starting to be called Creators) to pivot to posting giant photos and short videos because people don't like to read and that blogs were dead.
Blogs, in their first glorious form of weblogs of how people live, are not dead. RSS still exists (I also use Feedly) but I have so much side-eye to that first crop of bloggers who, knowingly or not, helped create this environment where "six boring men" control most of the online eyeballs.
posted by kimberussell at 6:24 AM on May 4, 2023 [30 favorites]
Reads the pull quote: Wow, this sounds dead on and I'd like to read it. I remember when the internet was this giant open playground and you could just stumble on stuff and read whatev-- clicks the link: Users must register to see article.
Okay then.
posted by Mchelly at 6:34 AM on May 4, 2023 [22 favorites]
Okay then.
posted by Mchelly at 6:34 AM on May 4, 2023 [22 favorites]
I think what gets me about the internet now is that it's so boring. I still have those 5 or 10 minute chunks of downtime during the workday but slowly over the past decade or so it's just been like... I don't even know what to do on the internet anymore. Reddit is fine, but there's only so many Star Trek memes and AITA posts I can read. All the blogs I used to read are dead. Facebook? lol. Twitter? double lol. Metafilter is great, but not very active.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:37 AM on May 4, 2023 [28 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 6:37 AM on May 4, 2023 [28 favorites]
On 10/2/2012 I predicted that Google was preparing to kill off Reader. About six months later they proved me right.
Like many others here (I suspect we are not representative!) I still use RSS every day. One thing I really like about Mastodon is that a high percentage of active users are also still maintaining blogs. It's like a little corner of the old Internet. I'm perfectly fine if it stays a little corner too. Let Bluesky have the masses. Although, as Bluesky scales, it's going to run headfirst into all the same problems that Twitter did, and I'm not convinced decentralizing solves any of those problems. It's still going to be an ad-based business, so it's still going to default to all the wrong things.
posted by COD at 6:38 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Like many others here (I suspect we are not representative!) I still use RSS every day. One thing I really like about Mastodon is that a high percentage of active users are also still maintaining blogs. It's like a little corner of the old Internet. I'm perfectly fine if it stays a little corner too. Let Bluesky have the masses. Although, as Bluesky scales, it's going to run headfirst into all the same problems that Twitter did, and I'm not convinced decentralizing solves any of those problems. It's still going to be an ad-based business, so it's still going to default to all the wrong things.
posted by COD at 6:38 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Google Reader was great, but it wasn't very popular with non-techies. The process of creating your own feed just doesn't appeal to a lot of people, as evidenced Netflix and Amazon recommendation engines. Too many people are happy with being spoon fed.
Google didn't kill Reader because it was too good or too popular. It really just slowly starved it, because it wasn't the next big thing. What finally killed it was Google+, which they assumed was going to be the NBT. See these comments from a Google PM.
Disclosure: I worked at Google during that time, and was pulled from my project to work on Google+ myself.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:39 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
Google didn't kill Reader because it was too good or too popular. It really just slowly starved it, because it wasn't the next big thing. What finally killed it was Google+, which they assumed was going to be the NBT. See these comments from a Google PM.
Disclosure: I worked at Google during that time, and was pulled from my project to work on Google+ myself.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:39 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
Everyone, from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to regular posters is skeeting about how euphoric it feels to be able to exist on a platform without feeling like you are walking into the middle of an arena to be stoned to death.I'm watching intently to see how Bluesky will handle growth and whether its current content moderation policies scale up accordingly. History suggests they won't, there's always hope I guess. Of course, they claim it's decentralized ala Mastodon so perhaps they'll handle it on an instance-by-instance basis.
posted by tommasz at 6:52 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
I miss LiveJournal from the days before everyone jumped ship to Facebook (which was before LJ got sold to a Russian company). Everyone I followed was someone I knew personally, aside from maybe three people who I met online and thought were cool. We all probably overshared a little, but it was generally honest and wholesome, with occasional interesting links or the silly "which Sesame Street character are you?" personality quiz stuff kept to a dull roar at most.
Nobody was pushing outrage at us or recommending junk products, nobody's account got zombified into vomiting out Ray-Ban ads, nobody did anything just to get likes or followers, everything was in chronological order, and it felt like a kind of community despite having no moderation.
Sigh.
When I quit Facebook I started my own blog. It feels a little like mumbling into the void, and probably it's 90% tedious, like any personal journal tends to be. But it's healthier than Facebook was, and once in a while it helps me remember things like "when was it we visited that aquarium in Chattanooga?"
posted by Foosnark at 6:59 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
Nobody was pushing outrage at us or recommending junk products, nobody's account got zombified into vomiting out Ray-Ban ads, nobody did anything just to get likes or followers, everything was in chronological order, and it felt like a kind of community despite having no moderation.
Sigh.
When I quit Facebook I started my own blog. It feels a little like mumbling into the void, and probably it's 90% tedious, like any personal journal tends to be. But it's healthier than Facebook was, and once in a while it helps me remember things like "when was it we visited that aquarium in Chattanooga?"
posted by Foosnark at 6:59 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
Dreamwidth still exists and is a solid LJ-replacement. I visit my little circle every day and update 5-10x a week. We should do a metafilter-dreamwidth name exchange!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:10 AM on May 4, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:10 AM on May 4, 2023 [12 favorites]
think what gets me about the internet now is that it's so boring. I still have those 5 or 10 minute chunks of downtime during the workday but slowly over the past decade or so it's just been like... I don't even know what to do on the internet anymore. Reddit is fine, but there's only so many Star Trek memes and AITA posts I can read. All the blogs I used to read are dead. Facebook? lol. Twitter? double lol. Metafilter is great, but not very active.
Same. My regular internet downtime browsing is: MeFi, my local subreddit, AV Club/i09/Jezebel/The Takeout, Serious Eats, Buzzfeed (which was never great, but it is now mostly breathless fluff to the point I am like why am I on here oh yeah BORED, and sometimes the LJ of one of my favourite authors in my 20s because she has descended into outright contempt and crankery for anyone who is "far Left" (she confesses she is firmly center left and will not budge). Oh, and the Tumblr of one of my fave MeFites.
Other than that: everything is "oh would you like to read an interesting article? You would? PLZ SIGN IN."
posted by Kitteh at 7:14 AM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
Same. My regular internet downtime browsing is: MeFi, my local subreddit, AV Club/i09/Jezebel/The Takeout, Serious Eats, Buzzfeed (which was never great, but it is now mostly breathless fluff to the point I am like why am I on here oh yeah BORED, and sometimes the LJ of one of my favourite authors in my 20s because she has descended into outright contempt and crankery for anyone who is "far Left" (she confesses she is firmly center left and will not budge). Oh, and the Tumblr of one of my fave MeFites.
Other than that: everything is "oh would you like to read an interesting article? You would? PLZ SIGN IN."
posted by Kitteh at 7:14 AM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
everyone wants their small integrated community to consist of world leaders, famous artists and billionaires.
Only if they have interesting things to say about The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Otherwise I'm happy down here with the other murderbots.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:18 AM on May 4, 2023 [21 favorites]
Only if they have interesting things to say about The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Otherwise I'm happy down here with the other murderbots.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:18 AM on May 4, 2023 [21 favorites]
clicks the link: Users must register to see article.
Saving to the Pocket app works.
posted by Reyturner at 7:21 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Saving to the Pocket app works.
posted by Reyturner at 7:21 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I find I spend most of my time on the internet nowadays visiting various forums that I've been a member of since the early internet. So I'm surrounded mostly by old farts like me talking about old fart hobbies and interests. Other than that, it is usually MeFi and a couple news sites. The rest of the internet has been so hollowed out.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:28 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:28 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
My blazing hot take is that RSS was the beginning of the end of the old internet. Once you were conditioned to consuming a feed in place instead of going out into a world wide web it was trivial and inevitable to build an enclosure around you.
posted by rodlymight at 7:30 AM on May 4, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 7:30 AM on May 4, 2023 [20 favorites]
We are reaping the rewards of the true endless summer. AOL opening the floodgate of a bunch of "me too" people into Usenet didn't destroy the Internet, though. Those folks at least were willing to interact, not just glaring into the yawning maw of a broadcast medium.
The Internet not vigorously shunning the extractionists is what done it. We grumbled about it, we posted a lot of rants about it, but we didn't, you know, unplug them. We didn't say, hey, you're literally abusing the network for commercial purposes so goodbye.
Instead, we decided it was okay to monetize a little. Rather than contributing back a story or a recipe or bandwidth or a piece of software or telling someone about a scholarship or a game walkthrough, we collectively decided it was okay to just contribute back... an eyeball. Consumption was easier, more accessible, more controllable.
We abstracted the messy human exchange away to intermediaries, those intermediaries extracted wealth from it by reducing the input side to passivity and the output side to money with some sticky fingerprints on it.
posted by majick at 7:51 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
The Internet not vigorously shunning the extractionists is what done it. We grumbled about it, we posted a lot of rants about it, but we didn't, you know, unplug them. We didn't say, hey, you're literally abusing the network for commercial purposes so goodbye.
Instead, we decided it was okay to monetize a little. Rather than contributing back a story or a recipe or bandwidth or a piece of software or telling someone about a scholarship or a game walkthrough, we collectively decided it was okay to just contribute back... an eyeball. Consumption was easier, more accessible, more controllable.
We abstracted the messy human exchange away to intermediaries, those intermediaries extracted wealth from it by reducing the input side to passivity and the output side to money with some sticky fingerprints on it.
posted by majick at 7:51 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
Blogs, in their first glorious form of weblogs of how people live, are not dead. RSS still exists (I also use Feedly) but I have so much side-eye to that first crop of bloggers who, knowingly or not, helped create this environment where "six boring men" control most of the online eyeballs.
There definitely was a money- and fame-hungry group, but I will say in their defense that at a certain point, the six boring men's companies were pursuing those bloggers hard, as were PR agencies (not necessarily ad agencies yet). I mean who can forget the year that shame died, (err, still a great description but I do see a microagression in the text) followed a bit late by the swag wars? The bloggers were weird about it, but there was an environment in which to be...weird.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:52 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
There definitely was a money- and fame-hungry group, but I will say in their defense that at a certain point, the six boring men's companies were pursuing those bloggers hard, as were PR agencies (not necessarily ad agencies yet). I mean who can forget the year that shame died, (err, still a great description but I do see a microagression in the text) followed a bit late by the swag wars? The bloggers were weird about it, but there was an environment in which to be...weird.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:52 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yeah. I know people think of RSS very fondly, but like the whole reason RSS was developed was so that content could be syndicated and consolidated into portals (remember those?) which were designed to keep you captive.
Standalone RSS browsers were an unintended consequence that gave people the power to break free of those portals, but abandoning those in favor of convenient webapps like Google Reader was a huge mistake because it once again consolidated power in favor of big players who were now effectively running portals again. And once Google decided they no longer had to run their portal-with-the-name-filed-off that was Google Reader, they ended the program.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Standalone RSS browsers were an unintended consequence that gave people the power to break free of those portals, but abandoning those in favor of convenient webapps like Google Reader was a huge mistake because it once again consolidated power in favor of big players who were now effectively running portals again. And once Google decided they no longer had to run their portal-with-the-name-filed-off that was Google Reader, they ended the program.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Internet not vigorously shunning the extractionists is what done it. We grumbled about it, we posted a lot of rants about it, but we didn't, you know, unplug them. We didn't say, hey, you're literally abusing the network for commercial purposes so goodbye.
I mean, doing this would have crippled the internet as a medium and guaranteed it would never have become as culturally important as it is today. Not everyone either wants to or has the capacity to share content, and to exclude them would have been exceptionally myopic.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:11 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
I mean, doing this would have crippled the internet as a medium and guaranteed it would never have become as culturally important as it is today. Not everyone either wants to or has the capacity to share content, and to exclude them would have been exceptionally myopic.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:11 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
I used Google Reader for only about three years before it died, and I have used News Blur for the past decade, happily paying $24/year for the service. The lamentations for Reader have always struck me as self-limiting.
I’m still waiting on the micropayments for web content that were supposed to save newspapers.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 8:14 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
I’m still waiting on the micropayments for web content that were supposed to save newspapers.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 8:14 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
I agree with this essay, whole-heartedly. I do miss the smaller, more diverse internet when everything wasn't siloed, when it wasn't about buying stuff or getting ads shoved in your face, when content was chronological instead of algorithmic.
I do want to push back a little bit on something I'm seeing in this thread. The earlier internet was a smaller internet in terms of volume, and to put something online was a lot harder. One thing that social media got right (for better or worse) was it reduced the friction of Putting Stuff on the Internet.
To give you an idea, especially for any of the younger folks here, I got online in 1997. Even before I got online, I started learning HTML, because I wanted to have a website. In 1997, to have an online presence, you had to either learn HTML or get one of the early WYSIWYG HTML editors on the market. You had to upload files to a web host, which you could sometimes do in the browser, but would sometimes require an FTP client, depending on where you were doing it.
Stuff like Friendster, LiveJournal, Blogspot, and MySpace made it easier for people to put stuff on the Internet, and made it easier for people to find an audience. Lots of people want to put stuff online., but not everyone wants to learn how to write HTML to put stuff online. The less friction between "I have an idea" and "I can put that idea out in the world," the more likely people are to put those ideas out in the world.
That does not, of course, justify the abuses of corporate owned social media. It does not justify the spying, algorithmic content, or anything of the sort. It doesn't mean the current Social Media Hellscape we have was inevitable. But it does mean that if we wanted more people to have a voice, a place on this internet to put things out into the world—or even just their friends and family—it had to get easier to do it.
posted by SansPoint at 8:16 AM on May 4, 2023 [19 favorites]
I do want to push back a little bit on something I'm seeing in this thread. The earlier internet was a smaller internet in terms of volume, and to put something online was a lot harder. One thing that social media got right (for better or worse) was it reduced the friction of Putting Stuff on the Internet.
To give you an idea, especially for any of the younger folks here, I got online in 1997. Even before I got online, I started learning HTML, because I wanted to have a website. In 1997, to have an online presence, you had to either learn HTML or get one of the early WYSIWYG HTML editors on the market. You had to upload files to a web host, which you could sometimes do in the browser, but would sometimes require an FTP client, depending on where you were doing it.
Stuff like Friendster, LiveJournal, Blogspot, and MySpace made it easier for people to put stuff on the Internet, and made it easier for people to find an audience. Lots of people want to put stuff online., but not everyone wants to learn how to write HTML to put stuff online. The less friction between "I have an idea" and "I can put that idea out in the world," the more likely people are to put those ideas out in the world.
That does not, of course, justify the abuses of corporate owned social media. It does not justify the spying, algorithmic content, or anything of the sort. It doesn't mean the current Social Media Hellscape we have was inevitable. But it does mean that if we wanted more people to have a voice, a place on this internet to put things out into the world—or even just their friends and family—it had to get easier to do it.
posted by SansPoint at 8:16 AM on May 4, 2023 [19 favorites]
I mourn Google Reader as much as anyone (probably more actually, judging by my comment history), but let's not forget that there were other RSS aggregating services even then, and you could, and can, always run a local feed reader. Reader helped you keep all of your sites available no matter what machine you're using, which I found very useful, but it was its social features that most people were relying on at the time it was shut down, in favor of something called "Google Plus," an extra doomed thing that everyone knew was doomed* except managers at Google.
RSS as it's used now, and indeed how it has been used for most of its life, is a powerful anti-lock-in tool, because you no longer have to remember all of the many sites you might be interested in and to visit them all regularly looking for new content. Also don't forget, podcasts, which have become really popular again lately, are built off of RSS!
* DOOOOMED
posted by JHarris at 8:25 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
RSS as it's used now, and indeed how it has been used for most of its life, is a powerful anti-lock-in tool, because you no longer have to remember all of the many sites you might be interested in and to visit them all regularly looking for new content. Also don't forget, podcasts, which have become really popular again lately, are built off of RSS!
* DOOOOMED
posted by JHarris at 8:25 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
Okay then.
Metafilter:Pay people for their labor. Unless it’s something I want for free.
posted by hwyengr at 8:27 AM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
Metafilter:Pay people for their labor. Unless it’s something I want for free.
posted by hwyengr at 8:27 AM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
. In 1997, to have an online presence, you had to either learn HTML or get one of the early WYSIWYG HTML editors on the market.
Yeah IIRC even with Geocities you needed to know some HTML.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:27 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah IIRC even with Geocities you needed to know some HTML.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:27 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
I’m still waiting on the micropayments for web content that were supposed to save newspapers.
Me too! Instead of having to paid-subscribe to LITERALLY EVERY PAPER it'd be great if I could put ten bucks into an account that sends a dime or so to a site when I read a page on it! Even I can afford that! That was the dream, why didn't anyone ever try it? Was it Facebook and Twitter made it moot?
Before long the only people using the term "microtransaction" were hateful "free-to-play" and DLC gaming people, and the transactions were very far from micro.
posted by JHarris at 8:29 AM on May 4, 2023 [12 favorites]
Me too! Instead of having to paid-subscribe to LITERALLY EVERY PAPER it'd be great if I could put ten bucks into an account that sends a dime or so to a site when I read a page on it! Even I can afford that! That was the dream, why didn't anyone ever try it? Was it Facebook and Twitter made it moot?
Before long the only people using the term "microtransaction" were hateful "free-to-play" and DLC gaming people, and the transactions were very far from micro.
posted by JHarris at 8:29 AM on May 4, 2023 [12 favorites]
Is it ocelots again yet? Seems to me like it's about time for ocelots.
posted by flabdablet at 8:08 AM on May 4
Still capybaras apparently but I will raise the issue of ocelots next time I have the energy to make a post.
posted by joannemerriam at 8:31 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 8:08 AM on May 4
Still capybaras apparently but I will raise the issue of ocelots next time I have the energy to make a post.
posted by joannemerriam at 8:31 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm so old I'm a never-adopter of RSS. I never understood what was so hard about having a folder of bookmarks to the things I want to look at everyday. So from my POV the whole life and times of Google Reader are a non-influence on how I experience the internet.
I think a lot of what's happened in the last 15 years is content being sucked into Facebook (which I also don't use), and the PR function of blogging by creators getting mostly redirected to Twitter. Which I also mostly don't use. I also mostly don't consume video content so in a lot of ways it's still like 1996 for me, except HTML is a lot bigger and the promise of executable content is getting delivered upon (in ways that are sometimes hateful and infuriating).
I have archives of my old bookmarks, and my old old bookmarks, and may old old ... old bookmarks. (I'm also kind of a packrat.) Mostly these point at sites that have gone dark. On the other hand when I look at Wikipedia these days, to name just one thing that's neither a blog nor a toy of any of the Six, I'm pretty impressed with what the times have wrought.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on May 4, 2023 [18 favorites]
I think a lot of what's happened in the last 15 years is content being sucked into Facebook (which I also don't use), and the PR function of blogging by creators getting mostly redirected to Twitter. Which I also mostly don't use. I also mostly don't consume video content so in a lot of ways it's still like 1996 for me, except HTML is a lot bigger and the promise of executable content is getting delivered upon (in ways that are sometimes hateful and infuriating).
I have archives of my old bookmarks, and my old old bookmarks, and may old old ... old bookmarks. (I'm also kind of a packrat.) Mostly these point at sites that have gone dark. On the other hand when I look at Wikipedia these days, to name just one thing that's neither a blog nor a toy of any of the Six, I'm pretty impressed with what the times have wrought.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on May 4, 2023 [18 favorites]
And there goes SansPoint proving their username is incorrect, because they're right. It's easy for me to forget now how difficult HTML was to use for early netizens, enough so that Microsoft sold Frontpage, an actual component of Microsoft Office for years, oriented just towards creating HTML. It was a product I actually had a license for! It's easy to forget because I've been typing basic HTML tags in Metafilter posts and comments for so long that I have become inured to <i><b><u><blink><marquee>the hassles of typing out tags</marquee></blink></u></b></i>.
posted by JHarris at 8:37 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 8:37 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
And to the awesomely-named Aardvark Cheeselog, RSS is useful to me, and Reader's death so difficult to bear, because I follow many hundreds of sites. Not just for personal interest but to find material to blog about (ahem), so I can add my own commentary to the pile. If you just have a handful of sites it's easy to not see the point, but once blogging got big it became invaluable to keeping up with the great wealth of new content out there produced daily.
And I'm also a bookmark packrat, I keep meaning to pare them down and make my bookmark list usable again, but I see a link to a beloved long-dead site and I get really sad, what if this is the last record of the site's existence anywhere in the universe? I think about stuff like that a lot these days.
posted by JHarris at 8:44 AM on May 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
And I'm also a bookmark packrat, I keep meaning to pare them down and make my bookmark list usable again, but I see a link to a beloved long-dead site and I get really sad, what if this is the last record of the site's existence anywhere in the universe? I think about stuff like that a lot these days.
posted by JHarris at 8:44 AM on May 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
Just here to say that, if you have some budget to pay for online content, Defector is worth paying for. They are a sports blog that does enough fantastic non-sport writing that I pay to support them, and I do not care about a single sport.
They are employee-owned and publish their financials every year. Support this kind of journalism if you can.
posted by german_bight at 8:47 AM on May 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
They are employee-owned and publish their financials every year. Support this kind of journalism if you can.
posted by german_bight at 8:47 AM on May 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
Thanks Just the one swan, actually, for pointing me towards NewsBlur. I'm another staunch RSS user who found Feedly back in the day after Google 86'd Reader.
HOWEVER:
Several of us who’ve used the tool for a while have discussed how it seemed that Feedly was paying more and more attention to its Enterprise users, advertising tools that were highly corporate and unappealing to me and my food blogs. It felt like every month or two I’d get a pop-up informing me I could “Track competitors and emerging trends“ or “Track the influence of the largest US companies”. They also took a clear turn towards courting the cybersecurity industry, with somewhat military-sounding blog posts about how to “Track emerging threats” or set up a “Feedly for Threat Intelligence” account.
And then they tried to launch strikebreaking as a service. I've been on the lookout for a new RSS feed service since then.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:00 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
HOWEVER:
Several of us who’ve used the tool for a while have discussed how it seemed that Feedly was paying more and more attention to its Enterprise users, advertising tools that were highly corporate and unappealing to me and my food blogs. It felt like every month or two I’d get a pop-up informing me I could “Track competitors and emerging trends“ or “Track the influence of the largest US companies”. They also took a clear turn towards courting the cybersecurity industry, with somewhat military-sounding blog posts about how to “Track emerging threats” or set up a “Feedly for Threat Intelligence” account.
And then they tried to launch strikebreaking as a service. I've been on the lookout for a new RSS feed service since then.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:00 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
Defector is a site that I could easily see myself sending a dime whenever I view one of their articles for the first time. But speaking for myself, I don't read it enough, nor care enough about sports, to justify a paid subscription.
I'm still going through the thread backward reading comments, from CheeseDigestsAll
Google didn't kill Reader because it was too good or too popular. It really just slowly starved it, because it wasn't the next big thing. What finally killed it was Google+, which they assumed was going to be the NBT. See these comments from a Google PM.
Disclosure: I worked at Google during that time, and was pulled from my project to work on Google+ myself.
I know I said this above, but I really must emphasize, again, how DOOOOMED Google Plus was, and how we all knew of its doomèdness. We all could see coming the era after where Google would tell us "Plus? What's that? There never was a Google Plus! You're imagining things!", where its only remaining trace would be countless instances of the old-style Google 'g' with a '+' baked into images offering to share content with the rest of the web on disused and forgotten blogs, hieroglyphs of an ancient time.
posted by JHarris at 9:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'm still going through the thread backward reading comments, from CheeseDigestsAll
Google didn't kill Reader because it was too good or too popular. It really just slowly starved it, because it wasn't the next big thing. What finally killed it was Google+, which they assumed was going to be the NBT. See these comments from a Google PM.
Disclosure: I worked at Google during that time, and was pulled from my project to work on Google+ myself.
I know I said this above, but I really must emphasize, again, how DOOOOMED Google Plus was, and how we all knew of its doomèdness. We all could see coming the era after where Google would tell us "Plus? What's that? There never was a Google Plus! You're imagining things!", where its only remaining trace would be countless instances of the old-style Google 'g' with a '+' baked into images offering to share content with the rest of the web on disused and forgotten blogs, hieroglyphs of an ancient time.
posted by JHarris at 9:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
The early internet absolutely did shout people down for trying to monetize it. I remember it happening all the time before September of 1993. (To pick a date at random).
Also, one problem that the giant walled gardens solve is that they reduce the cost of sudden success. In the before times, if you had a viral video that blew up, you suddenly had a giant server bill. This might be a problem if you weren't set up to monetize. This still happens to small websites; the mastodon server I am on had its hosting costs go up every time there was a big Twitter exodus last year, and there was no guarantee that the donations would rise to cover it.
posted by surlyben at 9:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, one problem that the giant walled gardens solve is that they reduce the cost of sudden success. In the before times, if you had a viral video that blew up, you suddenly had a giant server bill. This might be a problem if you weren't set up to monetize. This still happens to small websites; the mastodon server I am on had its hosting costs go up every time there was a big Twitter exodus last year, and there was no guarantee that the donations would rise to cover it.
posted by surlyben at 9:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
with a '+' baked into images
Still bitter about losing “+” as a boolean for Google searches. That was the beginning of the end for me, where like a lot of companies marketing pulled the rug out from under engineering.
posted by hwyengr at 9:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [20 favorites]
Still bitter about losing “+” as a boolean for Google searches. That was the beginning of the end for me, where like a lot of companies marketing pulled the rug out from under engineering.
posted by hwyengr at 9:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [20 favorites]
I miss the Geocities days. I met one of my first girlfriends in a chat room on the Healthy Choice website (I know, right?), directed her to my "coooooool" GC page and the rest was romantic history.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:11 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:11 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Alas, JHarris, Google+ was the perfect congeries of features to nurture and then capture the very lively Indie RPG community. And when Google turned out the lights, they dealt it a blow that they still haven't recovered from, although it seems like the current twitter bullshit is even more harmful. We're so balkanized now.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:14 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:14 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
MetaFilter: old farts like me talking about old fart hobbies and interests
posted by briank at 9:35 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by briank at 9:35 AM on May 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
I mean, blogs are still very much a thing, for one thing.
I'm going to politely say, as an old school blogger, they are not really most of the time. I don't even bother to publicize any of the ones I run, which don't have my full name on them, and frankly, that's because if a bunch of people read, I'd probably get doxxed/stalked/something awful. (I note a coworker of mine tried.) The bare minimum social media I have to use for theater is locked down and under an alias and I only post shallow short shit there, just in case. Nobody's doing the work to post blog entries all over social media, so nobody reads it. I could be posting explicit written Smurf pr0n on blogspot and who's going to notice this except for anyone who Googles for Smurf pr0n. I have like ONE regular reader of one blog, my friends read my craft blog, and any other blog I have is only read because they found something via Google search.
Me too! Instead of having to paid-subscribe to LITERALLY EVERY PAPER it'd be great if I could put ten bucks into an account that sends a dime or so to a site when I read a page on it! Even I can afford that! That was the dream, why didn't anyone ever try it?
I presume that didn't make anyone money or enough money. From what I've heard, having regular subscription money coming in is what makes businesses survive, not penny ante one-off change.
places like 3WA and Poets&Writers that went away again. I miss those places, and Metafilter is my primary place online now, along with Facebook to keep up with friends and shitposts about whichever animal the internet is obsessed about this week.
joannemerriam: me too. Miss 3WA. This is about the one place "big" enough that isn't "social media" to hang out at that hasn't petered out. I only know a few people here and there rather than knowing the entire MeFi population like I did 3WA, but maybe that's for the best for survival.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:56 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm going to politely say, as an old school blogger, they are not really most of the time. I don't even bother to publicize any of the ones I run, which don't have my full name on them, and frankly, that's because if a bunch of people read, I'd probably get doxxed/stalked/something awful. (I note a coworker of mine tried.) The bare minimum social media I have to use for theater is locked down and under an alias and I only post shallow short shit there, just in case. Nobody's doing the work to post blog entries all over social media, so nobody reads it. I could be posting explicit written Smurf pr0n on blogspot and who's going to notice this except for anyone who Googles for Smurf pr0n. I have like ONE regular reader of one blog, my friends read my craft blog, and any other blog I have is only read because they found something via Google search.
Me too! Instead of having to paid-subscribe to LITERALLY EVERY PAPER it'd be great if I could put ten bucks into an account that sends a dime or so to a site when I read a page on it! Even I can afford that! That was the dream, why didn't anyone ever try it?
I presume that didn't make anyone money or enough money. From what I've heard, having regular subscription money coming in is what makes businesses survive, not penny ante one-off change.
places like 3WA and Poets&Writers that went away again. I miss those places, and Metafilter is my primary place online now, along with Facebook to keep up with friends and shitposts about whichever animal the internet is obsessed about this week.
joannemerriam: me too. Miss 3WA. This is about the one place "big" enough that isn't "social media" to hang out at that hasn't petered out. I only know a few people here and there rather than knowing the entire MeFi population like I did 3WA, but maybe that's for the best for survival.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:56 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
If you are looking for a simple RSS reader, FeedBro (horrible name) is a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome that reminds me of Google Reader.
posted by COD at 10:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by COD at 10:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm going to politely say, as an old school blogger, they are not really most of the time. I don't even bother to publicize any of the ones I run, which don't have my full name on them, and frankly, that's because if a bunch of people read, I'd probably get doxxed/stalked/something awful. [....] I have like ONE regular reader of one blog, my friends read my craft blog, and any other blog I have is only read because they found something via Google search.
I'm....honestly not clear about the connection between your saying that blogs aren't a thing, and then going on to talk about...the three blogs you have.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:47 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm....honestly not clear about the connection between your saying that blogs aren't a thing, and then going on to talk about...the three blogs you have.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:47 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just adding my voice as another old-school blogger who still composes my HTML by hand and never figured out this RSS thing. Never used Google Reader either but THIS
Still bitter about losing “+” as a boolean for Google searches.
... and the “-” as well doesn't seem to work anymore, not even on DuckDuckGo (which I thought was supposed to be better).
posted by Rash at 11:37 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
Still bitter about losing “+” as a boolean for Google searches.
... and the “-” as well doesn't seem to work anymore, not even on DuckDuckGo (which I thought was supposed to be better).
posted by Rash at 11:37 AM on May 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
Foosnark: ""when was it we visited that aquarium in Chattanooga?""
1998. On my honeymoon. It's a really cool aquarium but I haven't been back since.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:40 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
1998. On my honeymoon. It's a really cool aquarium but I haven't been back since.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:40 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Dreamwidth still exists and is a solid LJ-replacement. I visit my little circle every day and update 5-10x a week. We should do a metafilter-dreamwidth name exchange!
Yes! Although I don’t know how such an exchange would work here. I’m sure other mefites have interesting blogs, and I’m on the constant lookout for fun stuff to expand my Reading Circle.
At Dreamwidth I am Lovelyangel
posted by LovelyAngel at 12:09 PM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yes! Although I don’t know how such an exchange would work here. I’m sure other mefites have interesting blogs, and I’m on the constant lookout for fun stuff to expand my Reading Circle.
At Dreamwidth I am Lovelyangel
posted by LovelyAngel at 12:09 PM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Inoreader is my RSS reader of choice these days. Does a good job for me of reducing the adverts I see. I have feeds for blogs, feeds for various news outlets and feeds for issues in various Jira projects. Works pretty well for $20/year or so
posted by mdoar at 12:23 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by mdoar at 12:23 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm....honestly not clear about the connection between your saying that blogs aren't a thing, and then going on to talk about...the three blogs you have.
Nobody reads that stuff, is what I said after that. I have them, but they are archaic these days. Most people only want to read their social media feeds and short updates and GIFs, not long writing pieces. I do them for me, not because I expect to get readers, and it's probably literally safer for me to not have any and not to be seen and heard.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:27 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
Nobody reads that stuff, is what I said after that. I have them, but they are archaic these days. Most people only want to read their social media feeds and short updates and GIFs, not long writing pieces. I do them for me, not because I expect to get readers, and it's probably literally safer for me to not have any and not to be seen and heard.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:27 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
When Google Reader died, article discovery shifted. People were no longer reading RSS feeds,
This comes off as an assertion that the end of Reader caused people to stop reading RSS feeds, yet nothing is offered to back this up.
Anecdotally, I and other Reader users I knew just went and found another feed reader. It wasn't like, oh well, guess that's it for RSS.
I don't know Google's reason for killing Reader (aside assuming that money playing a big role) but maybe RSS was already a fading thing as Twitter and Facebook ascended.
posted by Ayn Marx at 12:45 PM on May 4, 2023
This comes off as an assertion that the end of Reader caused people to stop reading RSS feeds, yet nothing is offered to back this up.
Anecdotally, I and other Reader users I knew just went and found another feed reader. It wasn't like, oh well, guess that's it for RSS.
I don't know Google's reason for killing Reader (aside assuming that money playing a big role) but maybe RSS was already a fading thing as Twitter and Facebook ascended.
posted by Ayn Marx at 12:45 PM on May 4, 2023
People simultaneously want small, integrated, curated communities, AND they want everyone they know to be there. These are incompatible ideals
Boy howdy. I can’t even invite all my friends in one city to the same party, not and have it be a good party.
posted by clew at 12:46 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Boy howdy. I can’t even invite all my friends in one city to the same party, not and have it be a good party.
posted by clew at 12:46 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Nobody reads that stuff, is what I said after that. I have them, but they are archaic these days.
Well...yeah, everything that this article about is archaic. I was pointing out another thing that is still hanging in even though everyone's moved on to Facebook, that was my whole point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:53 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well...yeah, everything that this article about is archaic. I was pointing out another thing that is still hanging in even though everyone's moved on to Facebook, that was my whole point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:53 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kelsey McKinney, who wrote this piece, also does a series of reviews of Zillow properties that are pretty funny.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:38 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 1:38 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I was pointing out another thing that is still hanging in even though everyone's moved on to Facebook, that was my whole point.
Yeah, but it's like Netflix DVD service or using old telephones/flip phones or anything else you can kind of still barely use right now, but after awhile, life/tech/whatever moves on. I admit I'm a dinosaur for doing it, I just don't care about being a dinosaur on the topic. Blogs aren't thriving and probably never will again. I'm surprised newsletters are "taking off," actually, since that seems more like blogging than social media.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:51 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, but it's like Netflix DVD service or using old telephones/flip phones or anything else you can kind of still barely use right now, but after awhile, life/tech/whatever moves on. I admit I'm a dinosaur for doing it, I just don't care about being a dinosaur on the topic. Blogs aren't thriving and probably never will again. I'm surprised newsletters are "taking off," actually, since that seems more like blogging than social media.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:51 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would argue blogs are doing better now than they were 7-8 years ago, say, and feel like I'm reading a pretty lively, interconnected set of blogs in my feed reader of choice (bazqux! written in haskell!).
So... It's not all doom and gloom and slowly slipping into the darkness, at least from where I'm sitting.
posted by sagc at 2:03 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
So... It's not all doom and gloom and slowly slipping into the darkness, at least from where I'm sitting.
posted by sagc at 2:03 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
About Defector, I signed up day one ( I missed deadspin dearly) and I haven’t regretted it for a second. I signed up for the lowest tier because I do my commenting here, and while I do follow sports, it’s not my main or only reason for reading them, and they owe pretty much their whole current (better) existence to a moment where the new owners of the old site told them “stick to sports” and they told the bosses to get fucked. Yes, they report on sports, but in a way that almost gets me to have an interest in Major League Baseball.
Right now, though, on the front page, are articles about the WGA strike, AI art (sucking), a writer’s meditation on reaching a point where they have aged out of the thing they used to do, and the what happened when they tried to dip their toe back in, an article about how cops can intrinsically never be relied on to fight for justice, and a stunning piece on the murder of Jordan Neely. It’s a collective (a real one) of fantastic writers who’ve carved out a space where, yes, the can write about sports, but also about the social justice issues that are dear to them. There are frequently people in their comments section (which is honestly another reason for joining, a moderated comment section that rarely seems to need moderation, and is often worth as much of a read as the articles) about how articles like the ones I’ve listed are the reason they subscribe, not the sports stuff. It’s worth a go, honestly.
Except for hockey articles. Man, I’ll never get into those.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:07 PM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
Right now, though, on the front page, are articles about the WGA strike, AI art (sucking), a writer’s meditation on reaching a point where they have aged out of the thing they used to do, and the what happened when they tried to dip their toe back in, an article about how cops can intrinsically never be relied on to fight for justice, and a stunning piece on the murder of Jordan Neely. It’s a collective (a real one) of fantastic writers who’ve carved out a space where, yes, the can write about sports, but also about the social justice issues that are dear to them. There are frequently people in their comments section (which is honestly another reason for joining, a moderated comment section that rarely seems to need moderation, and is often worth as much of a read as the articles) about how articles like the ones I’ve listed are the reason they subscribe, not the sports stuff. It’s worth a go, honestly.
Except for hockey articles. Man, I’ll never get into those.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:07 PM on May 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
The thing that I miss most about Google Reader is how easy it made sharing interesting things you are reading with your immediate circle of friends. Most everyone has a Gmail account and the format was not designed to share vacation photos or life updates or humblebrags, but instead, like MeFi, one shared interesting things found on the web. It was the perfect social network (for me, personally) and they threw it away in pursuit of a Facebook clone.
posted by clockwork at 5:22 PM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by clockwork at 5:22 PM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
I hope memes die soon.
posted by oldnumberseven at 8:43 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by oldnumberseven at 8:43 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
To this day, I have no idea what RSS is.
Even though I was rolling my own html web page back in 1995, I've never really been a "computer guy". I just had some niche interests that had a presence in those days, first mostly in usenet, and later on some forums, personal web pages and blogs. There was a time when maintaining such things was novel, but they took some effort on the part of the people who created them. I welcomed commercialization, and still do for the most part.
The social media boom was something that brought everyone else onto the internet. It introduced usefulness to a whole lot of people for whom the internet was a nerd mystery. For better and worse. It also made a lot of personal web pages and blogs obsolete. But social media was an application that I found little practical use for, and its great appeal mystifies me to this day. Facebook was useless from the get go. Twitter has a little more value, but who the fuck wants to know whatever thought pops into my mind at any given time? Clones? Tiktok? Etc? All those bullshit platforms mean nothing to me.
Despite us small time metafilter thinkers railing against social media for years and pontificating endlessly in one way or another (railing and pontificating I've had very little patience for), its utility to the masses was self evident.
I still read a few blogs and personal web pages that interest me. Keeping up such things feels quaint. I still visit my niche forums. Many of those niche interests have led to some relative star creators that have transitioned to polished youtube channels, a medium that consumes much of my internet time. And youtube has led to some more niche interests.
IMO, Wikipedia is the true internet killer application. I know there have been some passionate, pissy words spilled about Wikipedia, to which I say a big "Piss off!". As imperfect and perilous an existence as it is, the actual failure of Wikipedia would be catastrophic.
From my vantage, the internet hasn't gotten smaller. It hasn't hollowed out. It's gotten far more diverse and useful. It isn't that little exclusive village it once was. Not only am I fine with that. It's better because of it.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:15 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Even though I was rolling my own html web page back in 1995, I've never really been a "computer guy". I just had some niche interests that had a presence in those days, first mostly in usenet, and later on some forums, personal web pages and blogs. There was a time when maintaining such things was novel, but they took some effort on the part of the people who created them. I welcomed commercialization, and still do for the most part.
The social media boom was something that brought everyone else onto the internet. It introduced usefulness to a whole lot of people for whom the internet was a nerd mystery. For better and worse. It also made a lot of personal web pages and blogs obsolete. But social media was an application that I found little practical use for, and its great appeal mystifies me to this day. Facebook was useless from the get go. Twitter has a little more value, but who the fuck wants to know whatever thought pops into my mind at any given time? Clones? Tiktok? Etc? All those bullshit platforms mean nothing to me.
Despite us small time metafilter thinkers railing against social media for years and pontificating endlessly in one way or another (railing and pontificating I've had very little patience for), its utility to the masses was self evident.
I still read a few blogs and personal web pages that interest me. Keeping up such things feels quaint. I still visit my niche forums. Many of those niche interests have led to some relative star creators that have transitioned to polished youtube channels, a medium that consumes much of my internet time. And youtube has led to some more niche interests.
IMO, Wikipedia is the true internet killer application. I know there have been some passionate, pissy words spilled about Wikipedia, to which I say a big "Piss off!". As imperfect and perilous an existence as it is, the actual failure of Wikipedia would be catastrophic.
From my vantage, the internet hasn't gotten smaller. It hasn't hollowed out. It's gotten far more diverse and useful. It isn't that little exclusive village it once was. Not only am I fine with that. It's better because of it.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:15 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is possible 2N2222, that there are more people writing on the internet than ever, but if it is true, for most people finding those diverse voices, if they're not on corporate-owned social media, has gotten a lot harder, and it results in a very similar kind of situation from their perspective. There's fewer people pointing them out, directories like the old Yahoo are scarce now, webrings and other community crosslink programs are gone, Google is less likely to surface them in preference to bigsites or at least those that meet their web design preferences, and on Twitter if you put a link in your post the algorithm will actively penalize your post in its promotion.
posted by JHarris at 10:58 PM on May 4, 2023
posted by JHarris at 10:58 PM on May 4, 2023
Just throwing out a +1 for newsblur. After relying on Thunderbird's built in RSS management for ages (it's very basic) I tried a bunch of different RSS clients and NewsBlur is what I settled on. Really clean interface, and works like I want.
Edit: Also yah, good article. Every once in a while I become acutely aware that I've been using the internet more or less the same way for 10-20 years. Suits me fine, and still works well.
posted by Alex404 at 11:50 PM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Edit: Also yah, good article. Every once in a while I become acutely aware that I've been using the internet more or less the same way for 10-20 years. Suits me fine, and still works well.
posted by Alex404 at 11:50 PM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
I, too, found the RPG community on G+. However, it was just before it was shut down, so it was just a blink of the eye for me.
posted by Harald74 at 5:09 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Harald74 at 5:09 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
And I can add my NewsBlur recommendation to the pile.
posted by Harald74 at 5:09 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Harald74 at 5:09 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
A parallel issue is that Google search has gotten worse, so the value of a trusted source of links is higher than ever before.
Yesterday I happened to run across a link to some info (viz., using a Google AIY Hat as a smart speaker component, without the now-stale Google software image) that I have been casually seeking for a couple of years with no luck. And it was on a blog, linked from a Reddit thread.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:25 AM on May 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
Yesterday I happened to run across a link to some info (viz., using a Google AIY Hat as a smart speaker component, without the now-stale Google software image) that I have been casually seeking for a couple of years with no luck. And it was on a blog, linked from a Reddit thread.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:25 AM on May 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
There is a MeFi community on DW--https://metafilter.dreamwidth.org/ although it's a little quiet :-)
posted by Calzephyr at 10:37 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Calzephyr at 10:37 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kind of a bummer that in an arrival about the fading out of RSS there are zero mentions of ActivityPub and 20+ of Bluesky.
posted by Artw at 11:22 AM on May 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 11:22 AM on May 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was using Dave Winer's Frontier database to dynamically generate web pages for an intranet (as we had to stress it aloud), back when he invented RSS. And it really was a good idea.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:43 AM on May 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 11:43 AM on May 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
ArtW, sure, but seven people have mentioned Mastodon, of which ActivityPub is an essential part. And NewsBlur recently started allowing you to subscribe to Mastodon accounts as if they were RSS feeds, which is really cool!
posted by JHarris at 12:35 PM on May 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 12:35 PM on May 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't really know what it is, exactly, but this website/shared storage/social media thing has some of that early-days-of-the-internet feel to it:
are.na
posted by newdaddy at 6:54 PM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
are.na
posted by newdaddy at 6:54 PM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
SansPoint: The earlier internet was a smaller internet in terms of volume, and to put something online was a lot harder. One thing that social media got right (for better or worse) was it reduced the friction of Putting Stuff on the Internet.
I agree, and also I disagree.
It was certainly harder than it is now, if you just wanted to put some words or a picture online. You had to do everything yourself.
In other ways, it was easier, especially if you wanted your own website; they were so much simpler, and easier to build. The technique was young and not so hard to learn; a relative beginner could build something that looked as professional as a website built by a company, because... well, all websites looked like shit. Expectations were low.
I even built a few sites for other people, with an utterly rudimentary knowledge of HTML and a cracked version of Dreamweaver. I would most definitely not offer to do that for anyone now. Sites need to work on mobile, they need a certificate, everything is so much more complicated. You can't just throw some tables together and call it a day.
If you want to put something online now, and you do not want to just post it in someone elses walled garden, it's a lot harder than it used to be and that means that the web these days doesn't feel like something that we can all, with a little elbow grease, really participate in. We can only color inside the lines that are provided for us.
The web used to belong to all of us as long as we were willing and able to spend a few hours to learn the ropes; now it belongs to the big tech corporations.
Give me the old web any time.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:07 PM on May 6, 2023 [15 favorites]
I agree, and also I disagree.
It was certainly harder than it is now, if you just wanted to put some words or a picture online. You had to do everything yourself.
In other ways, it was easier, especially if you wanted your own website; they were so much simpler, and easier to build. The technique was young and not so hard to learn; a relative beginner could build something that looked as professional as a website built by a company, because... well, all websites looked like shit. Expectations were low.
I even built a few sites for other people, with an utterly rudimentary knowledge of HTML and a cracked version of Dreamweaver. I would most definitely not offer to do that for anyone now. Sites need to work on mobile, they need a certificate, everything is so much more complicated. You can't just throw some tables together and call it a day.
If you want to put something online now, and you do not want to just post it in someone elses walled garden, it's a lot harder than it used to be and that means that the web these days doesn't feel like something that we can all, with a little elbow grease, really participate in. We can only color inside the lines that are provided for us.
The web used to belong to all of us as long as we were willing and able to spend a few hours to learn the ropes; now it belongs to the big tech corporations.
Give me the old web any time.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:07 PM on May 6, 2023 [15 favorites]
Since someone mentioned Google Reader.. I don't know if this is widely known outside of Google, but Reader was killed mainly by one guy: Vic Gundotra. He convinced execs to kill Reader so that his product, Google+, wouldn't have to compete with it. Now Google+ is dead, never having achieved 1% of the loyal fanbase Google Reader had, and Vic was accused of sexual harassment, can't get a job in the industry, and is mostly heard from posting trolly rightwing comments on Twitter.
posted by last_fall at 9:41 PM on May 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by last_fall at 9:41 PM on May 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
Well doesn't just wrap it all up in a nice bow last_fall
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:42 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:42 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
For its faults, it’s nice there are quite large communities.
Without Twitter, many businesses would just not care about any bad feedback. I can clap back at United and even with barely any followers they suddenly care.
posted by PaulingL at 4:19 PM on May 9, 2023
Without Twitter, many businesses would just not care about any bad feedback. I can clap back at United and even with barely any followers they suddenly care.
posted by PaulingL at 4:19 PM on May 9, 2023
My RSS consumption is in miniflux now. You can pay for them to host your account on a yearly basis, or you can install on your own server seemingly for free. I pay the yearly fee since it is only $15.
posted by soelo at 8:09 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by soelo at 8:09 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Or, you could use a local tool to read feeds. Thunderbird has RSS support. There's some free tools that may be useful, QuiteRSS and RSSOwl being two of them, although QuiteRSS's homepage hasn't seen movement since 2021, and its last update was 2020.
posted by JHarris at 8:36 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 8:36 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
The article mentions Lemon8 as a worthy alternative to Instagram. I went to check it out only to find that it is app-only.
As an artist and web developer, I use Instagram and avoid apps as much as possible. Apps are everything every tech monopolist could have dreamed of in the '90's, giving them complete control of the experience on your device, tightly restricting what you can do. Not to mention the fact that I don't want to have to do everything on my phone when I have much more ergonomic and powerful equipment at hand.
Any platform that is app-only is automatically less useful than an equivalent that has a desktop interface.
posted by mmrtnt at 10:19 AM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
As an artist and web developer, I use Instagram and avoid apps as much as possible. Apps are everything every tech monopolist could have dreamed of in the '90's, giving them complete control of the experience on your device, tightly restricting what you can do. Not to mention the fact that I don't want to have to do everything on my phone when I have much more ergonomic and powerful equipment at hand.
Any platform that is app-only is automatically less useful than an equivalent that has a desktop interface.
posted by mmrtnt at 10:19 AM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Thunderbird has RSS support.
Thanks.
And thanks everyone for reminding me of RSS!
posted by mmrtnt at 10:35 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thanks.
And thanks everyone for reminding me of RSS!
posted by mmrtnt at 10:35 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
> I am ... currently exploring Mastodon. It's not as fluid for some aspects of the UX, for example, the web client has issues for me when trying to Follow someone on a different server, so... lots of copy+paste.
Check out the Instance Changer bookmarklet.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:32 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Check out the Instance Changer bookmarklet.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:32 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
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