Was the internet "better" when it wasn't mainstream?

[PvtRyan]

Of course it's not so exciting any more, not when the interweb is available to you 24/7 (because of broadband). When I still had dial-up, I played CS religiously, racking up 250 euro phonebills (before there was a euro actually, and don't worry: dad's work paid). When I got broadband, I started playing... less? That's the cruel thing of life: don't have much of something so you want more of it and got plenty of something and you grow bored. It loses the magic a bit. It's the same with food btw. But you use the internet daily now, probably several hours a day (I know I do) and it just loses that magic and mystery. Games or things that I enjoyed doing when the internet was a rare commodity weren't any better, the games were boring compared to today's, the amount of multimedia entertainment was pretty much zero and downloading game demo's at 5 KB/s sure as hell isn't as fun or good as downloading at 1 MB/s. The internet back then wasn't better, it was a lot shitter in fact, it was just more special.

Nostalgia sucks.

 

[The Monkey]

No.

The bigger the better. There were far less people in the internet before. Now it's much better.

 

[Clavius]

Hey nice thread
I had a discusion about this with a couple of pals two weeks ago. I've been around on 'the internet' basically since when it became of any use (probably 94-95, not sure). I feel that it was at some point 'better', and my pals do too, but its hard to put a finger on it.

I think deathmaster nailed it:

Golden years 1999-2002

How come, that when I want some specs of old pc memory, I have to wrestle trough 6 pages of online shops, to come to a page on a used-to-be-free webhost, that no longer exists, of at the very least is filled with red crosses?
This has not always been the case if I remember correctly. In the above mentioned period at lot of webpages started that handled very specific (technical-) subjects. Most were done as hobby by people who actually knew what they were talking about.
Nowadays (man I sound like an old fart )we have wikipedia! Everything is on wikipedia, yet its mostly worthless since it's basic, very general info.

Plus, downloading mp3's was easier.:cheers:

 

[Cole]

Ah, I remember when good ol Napster first came around. It really did a lot.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Nostalgia sucks.

QFT. It ****s everything up =/

 

[function9]

OMG!!!!111 But there was no youtube, blogging, myspace, or incredibly cheesy and gaudy flash sites 15 years ago, what in heavens would anyone want to do on the internet back then.

Might be a new concept to some of the youngsters here but not everyone that uses the internet considers it a part of their social life. Only in the past couple years have search engines become useful tools. Somewhere in the late 90's until recently anything you searched for came back with nothing but BS/porn links that you had to wade through.

Ah the good ole days, when cable was uncapped, email was actually from someone you knew, popups weren't invented and almost all sites were still coded with notepad. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

 

[Bad^Hat]

LOL notepad!

Ah, the good old days of 40 billion Tripod/Geocities fansites, all with horribly coded frames and midi background music.

FTW.

 

[Darkside55]

I am oldschool and totally awesome

This is what your post read like to me. Amen. I STILL code with notepad.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Internet. Internet. Internet. Internet.

****ing Interbutts. I wasn't there to witness the beginning........But I'll be there to help bring about the end.

ಠ_ಠ *puffs pipe*

 

[Steven]

Internet. Internet. Internet. Internet.

****ing Interbutts. I wasn't there to witness the beginning........But I'll be there to help bring about the end.

ಠ_ಠ *puffs pipe*

...you never told me you had a pipe.

 

[Fliko]

Well, considering that status now?
Yes

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

...you never told me you had a pipe.

there are many things I haven't told you.

 

[AmishSlayer]

It's not functionality it's just what was good. There WAS a lot to do back in the day--not as much, but with regard to how much you actually USE, it's probably the same. You've just replaced some things with others. I remember having a lot more fun on the internet then than I do now, but as I said before I could probably chalk that up to the internet being a new and exciting thing.

I think it was more fun back in the day because it was a novelty and like you said, it was new and exciting at the time...but that's worn off and it's become a part of every-day life.

Also, on porn...you obviously have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to internet porn. Sorry. Porn's heydey on the internet was in the past, when everything was free. 'Free' today means, "go to a TGP and live off of samples while dodging blind links, and MAYBE torrent something or hit up a hub." In the past free porn meant, "Here's a site with free porn. No AVS, no membership, not samples. Come and get it," or "join a newsgroup where most of the posts surprisingly aren't spam," a sort of precursor to image boards.

I just threw in the porn comment as a joke :|