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Ask HN: I miss the internet of the 90s/00s. What should I do?

by ryeguy_24 on 9/7/24, 5:08 PM with 54 comments

I really miss the internet of the 90s and 00s. It wasn’t exploited with advertisements, short videos and other addictive content. It was simpler. We didn’t have to accept cookies on every page. It was exciting and it was adventurous. It felt like a hike through the forest but not it feels like a walk through Times Square. I miss things like IRC chat rooms, bulletin boards, newsgroups, DOS prompts, under construction websites. I find myself sucked into the addictive world of the platforms and want to desperately stop and get back to experimentation and adventure. Where can I go to get back some of that feeling?

  • by mips_avatar on 9/7/24, 5:28 PM

    One thing I recently started doing is not caring about what I "should" be doing when I program. I used to love coding up random sites in basic html javascript with a few jQuery calls. But I was told I "should" be using react js, node js, hosting on specific cloud providers instead of a vps. I'm not saying all the new tools are bad, but I think the problem with the modern web, is it's less about building what you want and much much more about building what is considered "best practice". I think if you want adventures in the web, just start building janky weird stuff. AI is a help in that if you know what to ask for. Just have fun.

  • by rchaud on 9/7/24, 9:40 PM

    The first thing is to accept, difficult as it may be, that that era of the net is gone and can't come back. I say this as someone who desperately wants that not to be true, but it is.

    The number 1 reason for that is that the internet is everywhere now, whereas it wasn't before. That's why it was magic. Stumbling through Geocities sites and AOL chatrooms, it was always possible to find bits of arcane knowledge posted by a human who was educated and tech-savvy enough to even be online long enough to author something on it.

    That's not the case now. Most of the arcane knowledge has been on Wikipedia or similar sites, or hoovered up by some chatbot that spits it back out to you in the most listless writing voice possible. Moreover, you consume thousands more pieces of content daily than you did back then. If you came across something special, how long would it be before you abandoned it out of boredom and desire for a dopamine hit from somewhere else?

    Everybody is online now too, so forget about finding charming little outposts online; the best modernity offers is an occasionally funny social media account from a person who is almost certainly trying to sell a book, or course, or these days, a paid Discord channel. They create content for the sake of showing up on people's feeds, and that gets formulaic and performative real fast.

    So, making the types of personal websites people used to want to browse through, is largely pointless for somebody not in the tech/media industry. There are a thousand better ways to communicate info to others.

  • by sva_ on 9/7/24, 5:18 PM

    > No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it's not the same river, and he's not the same man.

    - Heraclitus

  • by trevett on 9/7/24, 5:36 PM

    I've accepted that we kind of lost the net to the money people and bureaucrats. Mid-late 90's it really was a frontier full of adventurous nerds. I would spend entire weekends on Efnet learning and experimenting with a tight group of people. Since a parallel non-commercial web has never taken off (and VR fizzled) I've ended up adventuring outdoors, the old school way. It's less intellectual but triggers similar feelings of discovery. There's a lot of experimentation and improvisation once you get into things like ski mountaineering because something always goes wrong. The camaraderie is also strong.

    Another alternative is simply Science, if you can handle the barrier to entry.

  • by steve_adams_86 on 9/7/24, 5:39 PM

    I think the solution is to be the change you want to see.

    Lately a few friends and I have been switching back to basics of the olden days and enjoying it a lot. Our websites are hosted from home servers again (although my personal site is still on digital ocean… I’ll get to it), we don’t have analytics or ads in our apps anymore (not that anyone cares, I’ve got like 50 users across two apps), and we’ve stopped using social media. We’ve got a simple forum we share that’s hosted on my friend’s server. We’re actively trying to cultivate the internet experience we miss. Does it make a difference in the scheme of things? Not really. We could almost replace our forum with WhatsApp or Discord. But in our participation in the internet, it feels pretty good compared to say 5 years ago.

    The pandemic really spurred out unhappiness with the way things have become. It’s still a choice to use the internet like we used to, for the most part. It’s affordable to build and host sites with no ads. You can still have an IRC or bulletin board-like experience. It’s all there still, but you have to choose to use it.

    The experimentation part is all about doing things instead of thinking about things, and seeking out people doing the same. Experimentation is an outcome of action. Ideas come first of course, but you need to build and try things out and see what needs to come next. A lot of my friends get stuck in thinking mode (and I do too), but the solution is invariably to just DO something and follow through. Don’t worry if what you’re doing is high value or necessary or whatever. You’ll spend less time doing it and finding out than you would otherwise worrying about possibilities and not doing anything.

    It's hard with so many distractions and with so many ideas already being executed on by massive companies with deep, deep pockets. The trick is to not care. Who cares. I don’t care. Explore what interests you. Cultivate curiosity and wonder and use it as intrinsic motivation. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing or has already done. Find other people like this, and I think that element of experimentation will return to your life. It certainly has in mine. It’s not quite the same as 20 years ago, but it’s there.

  • by marttt on 9/8/24, 4:21 PM

    Read phpBB-based forums. Many of these 1) are still very active and lively, and 2) include a lot of users who grew up in the 90s/00s internet culture. I like how the phpBB UI encouraged free-form writing/thinking and discussions, with flexible boundaries and etiquette set by the admins or the community itself. Contemporary UIs like Facebook seem far more restricted (or: prescriptive) in this sense, IMO resulting in shorter, kind of impatient and often more aggressive replies. Ramblings on old phpBB boards seem to typically carry more intellectual depth.

    Pro tip: to query only phpBB-based discussions via Google, I use the "inurl:" search operator with "viewtopic", which is a standard part of thread urls. E.g. "Windows 2000 inurl:viewtopic".

  • by rambambram on 9/7/24, 5:51 PM

    RSS.

    It stands for Really Social Sites, if I recall correctly. ;)

    I built my own reader - as a part of my website package - but there are more. You are on HN so you probably know what an RSS reader is already, so no need to explain what it is, I suppose.

    I follow around 1200 feeds/websites with it, mostly blogs I found on HN and I think are interesting. At first, big tech's social media sucked me back in every time. Reading blogs, essays and articles linked to from a boring UI didn't gave me the 'sugar rush' that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Youtube gave me. But over time - especially after Youtube started showing me some stupid chicken video on every row of my subscription videos - I started to rely more on the peaceful oasis that is my own RSS reader. With content from 'channels' that I choose. In essence, I use a white list, not a black list.

    Long story short: it takes some time to get used to consuming content this way, but it is out there and it is possible.

    Besides, the web is already social media. No need to put unnecessary middle men between me and the web.

  • by slater on 9/7/24, 5:37 PM

  • by paulcole on 9/7/24, 6:50 PM

    > Where can I go to get back some of that feeling?

    You can’t. It’s one of the side effects of being 25 years older than you were back then.

  • by graycat on 9/7/24, 5:50 PM

    > get back some of that feeling?

    New Web site on the way: Free. No cookies, user IDs, logins, passwords, popups, overlays, or icons. Minimal JavaScript. Ads only in standard sized rectangles.

    Privacy: Any two users giving the same inputs on the same day get the same results, i.e., no user tracking.

    Crucial core, some own original applied math (based on own applied math Ph.D.) users won't be aware of and smarter than AI so far.

    Intend that users "love" the site.

    Simple Web pages that work the same on smart phones, laptops, desktops, etc. Web site code in .NET running. Doing system management, e.g., to recover from a disaster, getting files from backups, wrestling with Windows 11 after a hard disk failed on a Windows 10 system, etc.

    Giving site a critical review and then an alpha test ASAP ....

  • by dave4420 on 9/7/24, 5:30 PM

    There were absolutely ads on the internet in the 90s. It’s why today’s web browsers come with pop-up blockers built in.

    I think you are wearing rose-tinted glasses.

    You can still fire up a shell today if you want to. You can even run dos in a vm if modern command lines aren’t what you’re looking for.

  • by axblount on 9/7/24, 5:31 PM

    I'm not sure what you're asking. All those things are still out there. There are IRC chat rooms, forums, communities focused on building personal websites, and more. If you're asking how to feel what you felt all those years ago, I'm afraid you're out of luck. You can blame the world for changing, but you changed as well.

    https://neocities.org/ https://tildeverse.org/ https://libera.chat/

  • by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 9/8/24, 12:18 AM

    Try using a variety of text-only browsers that do not auto-oad resources, process CSS or run Javascript, find one you like and modify it to your liking. Operate in text-mode. Refrain from using a graphics layer when not viewing graphics. I have been doing this every day for over 30 years.

    Today's web can only aggravate you if you use a so-called "modern" browser. All the annoyances today are wholly dependent on Javascript and "modern" browser "features".

  • by bmgoau on 9/7/24, 10:07 PM

    That form of the web is still there, its just in the tail. Try creating a bookmark search macro for these engines: https://millionshort.com/ https://wiby.me/ https://search.marginalia.nu/

    For blogs https://blogroll.org/

    Sites that are light https://1mb.club/

    For youtube https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/de-mainstream-youtu...

    Create a Google Custom Search that excludes the top N sites or sites you find unpalatable https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/134847/how-to-fi...

  • by 46Bit on 9/7/24, 5:25 PM

  • by hkt on 9/7/24, 5:32 PM

    IRC is still good! Libera (née freenode) is alive and kicking and has sane people on it. It is worth just.. having an idle in a bunch of channels and checking them out.

    We're also pretty lucky to have the fediverse now, which the 90s lacked. Think of it as WordPress ping backs which iirc started in the 00s.

    As for other stuff, remember to use indie search engines. I forget the names now but some are hobbyist creations with a niche angle - perhaps some other commenter can help.

    Older communities are great too, like sdf.org

    Mostly though this feels a bit like it might not be entirely about the internet: I'm wondering, how many of the kinds of places you're missing had friends on them that you lost touch with? Personally I've only crossed the streams between (say) IRC and IRL a handful of times and would lose touch with people I care about a lot if IRC went away. One of those crossings did result in me being best man at an IRCer's wedding many years later. So maybe it'd be worth you trying to hunt out old communities you've been part of too, and bridging the gap to IRL friendships. That's the real antidote to platform addiction, imo.

  • by al_borland on 9/7/24, 11:22 PM

    Kagi has their small web project which tries to surface stuff outside of the modern mega sites. Here is their blog post about it and a link to jump in.

    https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

    https://kagi.com/smallweb

  • by yieldcrv on 9/7/24, 5:26 PM

    Tor and i2p destinations are somewhat like that, especially if you’re also reminiscing fondly on spotty connectivity

    Dread, jabber and forums

  • by ghssds on 9/8/24, 4:28 AM

    I too miss the '90s. The modem connection sound. The ANSI arts. The BBS communities packaging together online games, forum, and files download. Lord, BRE and Death Master. Fidonet.

    The Internet was clearly the superior technology and the future because of global connectivity but something was lost. You no longer was part of something bigger than you, but still not so big you were meaningless. My 386 not being overkill anymore. Webpages taking forever to load. Pointless Flash animation and butt ugly GIF. "Punch the monkey to win". And I discovered Internet just in time to see Gopher and Usenet die so I feel like I never experienced it when it was fresh.

  • by blueridge on 9/7/24, 5:35 PM

  • by jaggs on 9/7/24, 6:00 PM

    Why is the https://tildeverse.org link going to a RickRoll video? Is that...gulp...nerd humor?

  • by drewcoo on 9/7/24, 9:44 PM

    I think you're wearing nostalgia goggles.

    There was visual garbage everywhere then. Popup banners. Blink and marquee tags. Every site had a "cute" sign to let the world know that it was a work in progress. All sorts of horrifying uses of Flash.

    > Where can I go to get back some of that feeling?

    MySpace is very different now but seems to have carefully preserved its obnoxious aesthetics.

  • by frompdx on 9/7/24, 11:22 PM

    Make your own Geo-site or your own GeoCities. https://code.divshot.com/geo-bootstrap/

  • by bdjsiqoocwk on 9/7/24, 10:25 PM

    Am I the only 40 year old that doesn't have a sense of nostalgia for this period of the internet. Before wikipedia I had internet, but don't remember getting much value from it.

  • by gradus_ad on 9/7/24, 5:29 PM

    Special interest forums

  • by Vanit on 9/7/24, 10:46 PM

    Bit of a different answer to the others; play Hypnospace Outlaw. It's a quirky game that captures the geocities aspect of what you're talking about.

  • by throw9932sd on 9/7/24, 6:58 PM

    Play `Hypnospace Outlaw` ;). You will find that feeling there.

  • by vednig on 9/10/24, 3:00 PM

    Try out cloud.doshare.me and blast your mind

  • by Calamitous on 9/7/24, 5:31 PM

    There’s still some of that feeling in little pockets around the Internet. The tildeverse (https://tildeverse.org) might interest you; it’s a loose group of servers that offer free shell accounts for hosting simple web pages, chatting, programming, or playing around on a mostly unrestricted Linux box.

    I run http://ctrl-c.club, one of the oldest tildes. We’re (mostly) closed to new signups, but if you’re interested, send me an email to admin@ctrl-c.club and we’ll get you in.

  • by wetpaws on 9/7/24, 5:55 PM

    Create your own community.