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I've been on the small net for a while now, and I must say that it's like a breath of fresh air. Being 30, I'm not old enough to know the good 'ol days, but I vividly remember a different, a better web.
Around 2008/2009, I could spent days pirating new games - only to find out that my computer couldn't run them -, teaching myself Photoshop, posting mesmerizingly bad art on DeviantArt, just learning, having fun.
For me, those were the good days, when the only reason to have a Facebook account was to play FarmVille.
Around that time, the web was well established, but it was still a 'tool'. You'd use it, enjoy it, but as an activity on its own. It was 'finite', and not everywhere all the time.
And then came broadband cellular internet. Facebook and Twitter took over, and in the next ten years the internet invaded every part of our lives, and from being part of reality, it became reality itself. Even worse; it's been actively shaping our reality. Because nuance doesn't sell, and we're up against very clever algorithms, tickling our confirmation bias and feeding us the wrong stuff at the right time. Carrying the internet around is just not healthy.
But I guess I'm not telling you anything new, and there's a good chance that it's even the reason you're here. You're thinking: "Ah, another techie with an undiagnosed quarter life crisis, writing about a web that is no more". You're probably right, but I promise I'll keep the ranting to this post only ^^
But yes, we don't need more people like me here. I would love to see more non-technical people find the small net and contribute to it. But to get them interested, we need content that's interesting to them.
But.. to get more content like that, I suppose we need more people like them?
What do you think? Will the small net escape this circle? And should it?
Or will it forever remain a safe haven for disgruntled nerds like me?
Let me know what you think.