Technology

Very understandable for a millennial and younger audience. I remember multiple apps and web services turn from cheap useful tools into crap. Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, every food delivery app were all great at one point until the late stage capitalism machine hits. They all destroy themselves to hit profitability targets that no company can achieve.

That was a great read, I'd never heard of Prodigy, but its sad how since the beginning of the internet, companies have been trying to monetize community and just end up destroying it.

This writing is a little too emotional, but I understand what it is trying to say. I think it is always someone's emotions that make something newer than it is now.

Damn, that was actually really good. I'm not as old as the writer here, but I did experience a lot of what they describe. And it's almost funny, that they perfectly describe, again, what's going on with Reddit and us coming here to places like this, even before it happened. Because it has happened before, and it will continue to happen again.

That was a long read but very good. It pretty much encapsulates how I feel about most things right now. Websites, game/movie/TV franchises, public spaces, even nostalgia itself. They all get squeezed dry until everyone hates them and then they are discarded.

Thank you so much for linking that, I loved it, and it seems so relevant as we start up in this new oasis!

Damn, I balked at the length then found myself at the end. Her anger is my spirit animal.

This was a fantastic read, thank you for sharing it!

I was never on LiveJournal, but I remember spending a lot of time on all sorts of random websites in the 90s and early 00s. Many hosted on Geocities, or Tripod, often with free forum software of some sort, making hundreds of tiny little communities. And over time, each one disappeared.

The fediverse gives me hope; it definitely has its problems, but fundamentally no single person owns the whole thing. Individual corners may come and go, but the network will remain, and that's awesome.

This is so beautiful and it makes me ache.

I never knew the story behind the downfall of LiveJournal until now. It's eerie to me how you can draw these direct lines between the continuous cycle in digital spaces and the state of the offline world today.

Great article. Damn, I miss the glory days of Livejournal

This is a great article. I'm gently, slowly crawling out of the cave I've been hiding in. For a few years now I've kept away from all social media. I got freaked by a revelation that all of the techno joy I had growing up for the amazing new tools of the internet, was built on shady foundations. From my cave I have witnessed these horrors. I crave the community, and the connection, though, and so am tentatively taking measured steps. Starting here, maybe mastodon.. we'll see. Hope to see some of you along the way.

I thought this was just going to be 'The Enshiftification of TikTok' again but it became so much more (and as an added bonus was made 1 month before that article.)
fuck all these people

Great piece!

Welp, felt that in my bones. Excellent piece, very much enjoyed it. I share the perspective in that I'm only a couple or so years younger.

That article was such a good read. It was a less a stroll down memory lane, and more being hit on the head and dragged down memory alley. But, it was so worth the read.

Eh, it's not surprising that people who spend money on the upkeep of a thing will eventually also want to get revenue out of the thing. If she doesn't like it she can host her own version of reddit and pay the server fees for everyone.

Insightful, evocative, well-written, and 100% pertinent to what is going on these days.

Thank you for sharing this.

Anyone reading my comment who just read a bit of this article or skimmed it - please do yourself a favour and devote 10mins to reading the full thing.

Why do I get the impression that most of the commenters here haven't noticed that the wider fediverse, and of course kbin.social, are made as an attempt to solve this exact problem.

You're here because we're trying to fix this!

I'd put my money on spritely.institute rather than the current system, but whatever; we are trying!