Nobody needed a pseudonym back then.
You could just speak your mind openly and always write your real name to it, and it was THE NORMAL thing to do.
And yes of course we all had some f*ing “controversial” opinions back then. It was our youth after all :-) No holding back with what you would probably call unbearable extremes nowadays. And then nobody needed to do any canceling or banning or crushing our skulls…
What? I think anonymity was much more prevalent then. “Don’t give anyone your real name on the internet, for anything ever” was a rule generally followed until Facebook came around. It wasn’t even common for a non-business email address to be a variation on your real name until around 2008
I think that was later, when money started to take over.
I really miss MSN, I had really good times on it.
The internet itself.
Get off my lawn.
I’d like to see less use of JavaScript tracking and more “simple websites”!
I agree. I use Pelican to build my website and I don’t use any javascript. It’s simple, it’s fast (it doesn’t really have much content that would be interesting to anybody, but it’s mine and I like it!)
One of the things I like about Lemmy is that the devs had the forethought of developing in Rust rather than PHP or another prototyping language that doesn’t scale as well.
That it wasn’t flooded with the everyday person’s idiocy.
I used to think the internet was awesome because it would allow everyone to communicate with each other without limits. Now I think it’s awful, for the same reason.
Rotating gifs all over every homepage
I liked forums. It was a bit easier to develop a close rapport with a small group of users than I’ve found on Reddit or Lemmy. Small Discord servers can replace that to some extent though
Net neutrality
I’d like to bring back the absence of some things.
Nothing was “mainstream” because it was all still weird, and populated by people with a sense of curiosity and adventure. I’d like the absence of ‘normal’ back.
Corporate presence was minimal. They sometimes had their own websites, and a few had flash games and/or media sites mostly as a PR thing. But that was the extent of it. The main corporation involved was the phone company whose bill you’d have to pay. I’d like corporations to step back and to let people take over again.
And finally, customer service and other business functions. They moved those over to the internet to save a ton of money, but the quality of services plummeted as a result - hurting employees and customers. But they save enough money that they’ll never go back, and it also allows businesses to market to a far wider customer base than they can honestly provide for. Scamming people is the new standard because it’s so easy to get away with when expectations have gotten so low.
A lot of what I’d mention has already been said, so I’ll add the lack of influencers.
Goofy, random flash videos. AlbinoBlacksheep was like the internet in its prime
A badger badgers badger badger badger badger badger MUSHROOM MUSHROOM!
Snaaaake, a snake. Oh it’s a snake
It’s a
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We used to receive more real e-mails than SPAM e-mails.
Same with phone calls
And snail mails.
Message boards without likes or upvotes
Hope for the future, that the days of widespread ignorance would soon come to an end.
Fast forward 20 years, and misinformation is rampant and most people believe it without question. 🤦♂️