JoeWras
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2012
- Messages
- 11,738
With the recent turbulence at Twitter and Reddit, it got me thinking about a lot of things about the internet.
Significantly, it is becoming more and more difficult to find and discuss quality information. I'm not even talking about politics or hot buttons like COVID or climate. How about just hobby stuff? Seriously, politics is another level and I repeat, I am not even talking about that.
Thankfully, this site (early-retirement.org), bogleheads and a few others are going against the grain and hanging in there, keeping the user driven forum alive.
The problem is manifold.
1) Search curates you and points you into a corner they think will make them money
2) Forums are dying
3) Video is king
4) General social media forums (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit) are either under extreme upheaval (Twitter, Reddit) or have just become useless curated money-makers (Facebook, Instagram)
5) Video can be useful, but takes time to find the info and is now dominated by money makers (TikTok, YouTube, and so on)
I suppose I could complain about the good old days, and maybe I will for a paragraph or two.
Very early on (90s), there was a sense of "we're all in it together" and people helped. Many blogs were started that were really, really useful. Sure, there were trouble-makers. There always are. But generally, you could cut through the crap and make your own decisions and find that diagram and experience on changing out the wiring harness on your 1990 Astro.
Up until the phone age, this generally was the way. Around the dawn of the smart phone, google was becoming more sophisticated, and was starting to direct you for clicks, but they were open about it. Youtube in its infancy had some great stuff, all home made. Forums were still abundant, as were blogs.
Then Facebook. Then google takeover of Youtube. Then Twitter, and it seemed to all go to hell.
Everyone is in it for a buck. Good information has been removed. Many forums died, presumably because everyone went to Facebook or Reddit. There's something to that, but I can also say the Google and Bing curation definitely led people away from the more homier stuff that would not make money with click thrus.
Now we find ourselves in a situation where everyone is trying to make a buck, while at the same time screaming that capitalism sucks. It is ironic. So, there are the protests on Reddit. Musk has locked down Twitter because of "spam." Screw him, I'm not a spammer, but I'm also not getting a sign on. Never had one. Don't want one. Tik Tok is the land of idiots.
And so on.
Maybe I'm just being melodramatic, but it seriously is bugging me as I'm trying to look up hobby stuff and it has either disappeared with the Reddit protest, or becomes some 20 minute YouTube I have to wade through. I also want to discuss theories about movies. Can't do that anymore once Bezos got a hold of IMDB. It got relegated mostly to Reddit. Guess what? Protest.
At least I can still search for stuff here. For now...
Significantly, it is becoming more and more difficult to find and discuss quality information. I'm not even talking about politics or hot buttons like COVID or climate. How about just hobby stuff? Seriously, politics is another level and I repeat, I am not even talking about that.
Thankfully, this site (early-retirement.org), bogleheads and a few others are going against the grain and hanging in there, keeping the user driven forum alive.
The problem is manifold.
1) Search curates you and points you into a corner they think will make them money
2) Forums are dying
3) Video is king
4) General social media forums (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit) are either under extreme upheaval (Twitter, Reddit) or have just become useless curated money-makers (Facebook, Instagram)
5) Video can be useful, but takes time to find the info and is now dominated by money makers (TikTok, YouTube, and so on)
I suppose I could complain about the good old days, and maybe I will for a paragraph or two.
Very early on (90s), there was a sense of "we're all in it together" and people helped. Many blogs were started that were really, really useful. Sure, there were trouble-makers. There always are. But generally, you could cut through the crap and make your own decisions and find that diagram and experience on changing out the wiring harness on your 1990 Astro.
Up until the phone age, this generally was the way. Around the dawn of the smart phone, google was becoming more sophisticated, and was starting to direct you for clicks, but they were open about it. Youtube in its infancy had some great stuff, all home made. Forums were still abundant, as were blogs.
Then Facebook. Then google takeover of Youtube. Then Twitter, and it seemed to all go to hell.
Everyone is in it for a buck. Good information has been removed. Many forums died, presumably because everyone went to Facebook or Reddit. There's something to that, but I can also say the Google and Bing curation definitely led people away from the more homier stuff that would not make money with click thrus.
Now we find ourselves in a situation where everyone is trying to make a buck, while at the same time screaming that capitalism sucks. It is ironic. So, there are the protests on Reddit. Musk has locked down Twitter because of "spam." Screw him, I'm not a spammer, but I'm also not getting a sign on. Never had one. Don't want one. Tik Tok is the land of idiots.
And so on.
Maybe I'm just being melodramatic, but it seriously is bugging me as I'm trying to look up hobby stuff and it has either disappeared with the Reddit protest, or becomes some 20 minute YouTube I have to wade through. I also want to discuss theories about movies. Can't do that anymore once Bezos got a hold of IMDB. It got relegated mostly to Reddit. Guess what? Protest.
At least I can still search for stuff here. For now...