Idk if this is the right community for this conversation, but it’s been on my mind and I want to share it with someone.

In the 00’s every new thing we heard about the internet was exciting. There were new protocols, new ways to communicate, new ways to share files, new ways to find each other. Every time we heard anything new about the internet, it was always progress.

That lasted into the early teens and then things started changing. Things started stagnating. Now we’re well into the phase where every new piece of news we hear is negative. New legislations, new privacy intrusions, new restrictions, new technologies to lock content away and keep us from sharing, or seeing the content we were looking for. New ways to force ads.

At one point the Internet was my most favorite thing in the world. Now I don’t know if I even like it anymore. I certainly don’t look forward to hearing news about it. It’s sad, man. We’ve lost a lot. The mega corps took the internet from us, changed it from a million small sites that people created because they had big ideas, or were passionate about small ones, and turned it into a few enormous sites with no new ideas, no passion, just an insatiable desire for money.

We’re at the end of an era, and unlike the last 20 years of progress, I don’t think most of us will like what the next era brings.

    • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
      1•1 year ago

      Choose and make the winners. Exciting stuff on the internet is not exclusive. On lemmy, everybody wins.

        • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
          1•1 year ago

          Making money is not a goal on lemmy, so why should there be more rewards than entertainment?

          If you want to make money, you have to look elsewhere. Crypto was an idea, but as we know, not sustainable.

          If you don’t find something, build it. Think like Bill Gates: build a platform where everybody can earn something. Don’t keep everything for yourself.

          Edit: Don’t think like Bill Gates. Just consider the idea of not squeezing out all profits for yourself, which, ironically, I have first read as a quote of him.

          • Nakoichi [they/them]English
            33•1 year ago

            Think like Bill Gates:

            So you’re telling me I should get into eugenics and strive to blame all the world’s problems on the people outside the imperial core breeding too much?

          • buckykat [none/use name]English
            27•1 year ago

            Think like Bill Gates: use monopoly power to drive all your competitors out of business then write your own antitrust settlement where you pinkie swear to be a good boy for five whole years.

            • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
              1•1 year ago

              The key part is that Bill Gates made the conscious decision to leave profits on the table for others. I haven’t heard that advice from anybody else.

              That said, there are many more evil things like breaking the platform promise and taking over app categories. But there is no need to copy those ideas.

              • Nakoichi [they/them]English
                25•1 year ago

                Bruh you just told people to think like a billionaire pedophile eugenics guy and you really need to address that before we talk about anything else.

                • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
                  1•1 year ago

                  Changed. Better?

                  I forgot the pedophile allegations and haven’t heard about the eugenics. The critique is correct and that background information makes me feel bad for the phrasing.

                  The phrasing was meant for the billionaire part, though. When a person is all about making money and that person stresses how important it is not to be greedy when building a platform, then that’s something to remember.

              • buckykat [none/use name]
                10•1 year ago

                The idea that Bill Gates left money on the table for others with Microsoft isn’t just wrong, it’s so exactly the opposite of reality that it boggles the mind. Did he leave money on the table for other DOSes with windows 95? For other office suites with MSOffice? For Netscape with bundled IE?

                Where did you get such a comprehensively false idea from?

                • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
                  1•1 year ago

                  I read it in an interview years ago.

                  The office suits and the browsers are indeed among the apps that were taken over. The money was made by all the other commercial apps, and games.

                  I should say that I don’t support that abuse of power.

              • TheCaconym [any]English
                33•1 year ago

                A homeless person is without the mental structure to build something lasting, or else they would not be homeless or would identify differently, e.g. as a traveler.

                You’re a truly disgusting ghoul

              • Nakoichi [they/them]English
                30•1 year ago

                A homeless person is without the mental structure to build something lasting

                Please kindly go fuck yourself. Like seriously please go outside and walk into traffic, you worthless disgusting piece of shit.

              • HornyOnMain [she/her]English
                9•1 year ago

                A homeless person is without the mental structure to build something lasting, or else they would not be homeless or would identify differently, e.g. as a traveler.

                Bill Gates stan to mask off fascist any% speedrun (8 hours, 3 minutes and 33 seconds)

                • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
                  1•1 year ago

                  Where is the fascism? Should I ignore the reasons for homelessness and pretend that it is a normal state of life? Have I missed the memo where people are voluntarily homeless?