But to be more broad I'll present you the romantic version which is at least partly true. I miss that.
It used to feel like the internet was a place you went to explore and learn. It was harder to use and navigate, so most ordinary people did not spend much time there. Back then, a lot of people believed it would make the world better because everyone could access information and educate themselves.
That optimism did not survive contact with reality. Today you can carry essentially all human knowledge in your pocket, yet much of the internet is funneled through a handful of corporations whose business model is advertising and attention. Instead of helping people discover things, the dominant platforms optimize for keeping you scrolling with outrage, dopamine hits, and low value content. Worst thing is of course politics which moved in here.
The joy of exploring is done, but honestly I think that it atleast partly that the og users got older. Hackernews somehow reminding me the "old Internet", somehow alike people with desire to explore and have honest discussion on genuinely interesting topic.
What makes you think that great stuff still doesn't exist, but you're the one stuck in those 5 corporations bubble that makes it impossible for you to find it?
There's still great stuff out there, it's still as hard to find and navigate as it has always been. It's still as shady and as illegal (if you care about copyright) as it has always been. Most people still don't bother to do it, you just became a part of that category.
Here, let me try snapping you out of that bubble a little bit and make you one of the today's lucky ten thousand: find a category that interests you on fmhy(.)net (SFW, I promise), see how long it takes you to spot something you had no idea existed outside your bubble.
Taking Tesla from where it was (an overpriced prototype) to what it is now did take some skill. He wasn't some passive investor who put money in and didn't do anything. The rest for sure he was gotten credit that isn't earned.
Does Leslie Groves deserve (some) credit for the Manhattan Project? Obviously there were people under him doing the actual day to day physics and chemistry work, but if a less effective person was in charge, the whole thing could have failed.
At one point, there were multiple new entries throughout each day. It was entertaining/terrifying to reload the page. Wonder when we'll see something like fuckedaicompany.com pop up.
Same... some of the horror stories still stick to me... move to SF/SV on a big job offer, show up on your first day to locked doors and guys with armed escorts repossessing the servers.
Working on a basketball app to bring people together. Basketball was invented out of grief, by James Naismith who lost his grandfather, mother, father, and family home to a fire within 4 months. He was tasked with helping to have rambunctious youth learn the principles of teamwork and sharing and slowing down and thus created the game. It truly brings people together and I hope everyone gets a chance to experience the magic that is pickup basketball. It got me out of a deep hole after the pandemic after my mom had passed and I gained 30 lbs.
Love this, it is interesting to see the links between topics, with things like father son relationship. I have a long queue of books to read that this year I finally set aside planned time on the calendar to read and walk. There are specific topics I want to read about so even if it just helped with finding some experts from books around a topic, it would help me decide. I think you're onto something here.
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