The web is ENSHITTIFIED... I wish it were more like the 00s, where there was... *Looks at screenshots* Oh no. *Flipping through screenshots* Oh nooooooooo. (CW: discussion of grooming / csam)

Submitted by twovests in just_post

There was a time where advertisements were malware-serving flash, and blocking them didn't matter because image decoder exploits were a dime a dozen. You could download an honest-to-god jpg on the internet, not a .jpg.exe, but a true .jpg, and it was viruses!

The best of the best websites had so many popups, and only the most Deliriously Dedicated of Internet Denizens knew you had no use for two billion toolbars. Microsoft's Internet Explorer was the focal point of the fragmented landscape.

And there was child porn everywhere! I was groomed to various degrees on half a dozen sites, and big mainstream sites like Reddit and Tumblr casually had csam! I ran into salacious photos of Britney Spears on Zelda forums! Reddit, somehow, has shaken off the whole "fappening" and "r/jailbait" thing. 8chan and co were only able to do so by having higher profile controversies in the form of terrorist attacks!

Before there was Discord, we had SKYPE and TEAMVIEWER and MUMBLE and they all SUCKED. Even the most ardent enjoyers of Dense and Obtuse technologies cannot defend Mumble. They had all the problems Discord had today, but good luck getting anyone with less than two hours of free time to join your server.

And even worse? Jstpst did not exist 10 years ago.

CHECKMATE, DOCTOROW

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flabberghaster wrote

back in those days every meme was just a picture of something funny with a caption. there were no macros, there were no rage comics, we made our own from scratch every time and they all sucked. 60% were just something broken in a funny way with the word "fail". And we were grateful!

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Dogmantra wrote

Even the most ardent enjoyers of Dense and Obtuse technologies cannot defend Mumble.

I am a defender of Skype and still used it almost daily right up until very recently and would continue if it were in my power to do so (Discord give me my COMFORT NOISE)

I would also like to defend mumble on the grounds that it was arcane sorcery and sometimes inexplicably worked even when everything else net-based did not.

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nitori wrote

The whole web is a mistake. Let's go back to gopher

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devtesla wrote

2016 was bad for a lot of reasons but the technology level was peak. Twitter didn't suck yet, there were still blogs, you could google shit.

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twovests OP wrote

Yeah, I generally agree wrt 2016. No more flash ads but you could still play flash games, Homestuck was still going on, TheFempire was still around I think, etc.

In terms of education, that was the best year to start college in the US too. Get out of highschool just before DeVos, graduate just before covid, and maybe enter the workforce with WFH.

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