@transrightsdinosaur
I remember all the weird and fun websites I'd frequent as a kid. And then they started getting overrun by ads, and then they got discontinued with flash. I miss them :(
@combustible7267
omg the connection between the rise of "for you" pages and the disappearance of nuance... it all makes sense now
@timtothink
That part about finding a random ass game on some scuffed site hit me like a ton of bricks
@fatherfeline
There's literally a Fire TV commercial boasting about how great it's recommendation feature is where the tagline is "Get told what you're into" and I think that, along with those Apple Intelligence commercials tells us all we need to know about these huge companies view their customers: as clueless idiot who are incapable of functioning without being spoon-fed everything they see through an algorithm
@deerkaiser9983
This is why I wrote a little web 1.0 site where I put all the dumb stuff I like and do, no javascript, no ads, no dynamic content, just text and images. I love sites like that, they give me the illusion that the internet nowadays isn't just controlled by huge corporations collecting and selling our data to thousands of ads companies
@DOSStorm
The decentralized internet of the 90s and early 2000s was far more interesting. Social media boiled the internet down into just a few social hubs run by mega corporations with no personality. I miss the silly forums and amateurish personal sites of yesteryear.
@lannydragonlover
I could never get into 'for you' pages, and I've definitely noticed that the amount of websites I frequent has gone down and down and down ... Most places immediately demand that I make an account and download the app, or you can't even access basic features! Not even art and writing websites are safe, unless you find a niche one with a subculture that's hostile to advertisements and corporate monetization ( thank you, furry art websites and AO3 nsfw fanfics. Appreciate y'all! )
@InvasionAnimation
All the homies remember Friv and Miniclips!
@PureSniperWolf
The internet is smaller, dumber, and the most corporate it has ever been. 😢
@SicCeboo
Oooh, I was not ready for the Cartoon Network website to be dead. That’s devastating
@jvb2279
I've been having a hard time lately finding cool things to watch on YouTube (I'm happy I was able to find your channel). It doesn't matter what I try to search I always end up getting recommended the same creators I already follow, and it's the same people I've watched for years now, which you know, maybe I don't really feel like watching the same things I did when I was 16 versus now at 21. Maybe I want to see what other creators and types of videos are out there, maybe I want to find a new hobby I didn't know existed or learn something new I didn't know about. It kinda feels that with the algorithm YouTube has they just think "hey!! Remember this?? You know you like this, why try out something new when you know already like this?" Idk, before it was way easier to find new things to watch and other opinions to listen to and now it's just, always the same, same people, same opinions without any type of growth or challenge
@patrickmoore1068
So true! I'm in my early 50's. The web seemed limitless back in the 90's and early 2000's. Now it's a shell of what it used to be. So depressing.
@TrizziEhgan
The internet being a small bubble made people get into developing indie, small websites, coined as the "indie web". This shows that people get to know that the internet has much more than just social media, like when people surfed the web that way in the late 90s and 2000s.
@NolMK
when u started talking abt schools teaching kids internet safety and how to use powerpoint, u opened a wave of nostalgia for me. i remember making dumb animations in powerpoint and showing it to my friends like it wouldve beaten the greatest animated film of all time. good times. guess someone has to teach the kids now...
@MsChaoticPenguin
The death of flash genuinely ruined the internet- I miss the days when I could waste an entire day just jumping from random flash game to random flash game.
@chandlee3968
I credit AOL chat rooms on teaching me how to type (1995). HS had “keyboarding” and electric typewriter classes but keeping up with chat on AOL sped me up. It was a format similar to Twitch chat on stream that scrolled at a ridiculous pace.
@RicUltima
Bro brought the hedgehog oc generator out from the greatest depths of my memories omfg And I'm a furry now god dammit
@geoffroys_cat
I love this video! As a young person (15 turning 16) who's been using social media since i was very young and recently deleted all but two, i cant agree more! social media has had such a negative impact on my development. it made me fall into the mindless ai trap when it got so popular in 2023 and avoid actually talking to people?? i've had such a codependency on social media, it's fried my attention span and genuinely made me feel so much dumber, because i wasn't engaging with anything with actual substance. social media's impacted me in ways i think will take years for me to ever change. and i see so many other people my age and older doing the doomscrolling and falling for the braindead dopamine traps i did, its scary. so many people my age dont have hobbies or interests, all they do is doomscroll and passively interact with content to pass time and hit just enough dopamine to justify continuing to rot. i dont really befriend people who do use social media alot anymore (especially people who use sites like tiktok. it fosters such mindless and brain dead communities). discord is the only other social media platform i have, and thats because its purely for communication unlike apps like instagram and isnt just braindead imo like snapchat. and i have youtube (obviously) because of creators like you! i love youtube (it obviously has its flaws) because of creators like you. most creators create videoes out of passion! not to show off the most recent trend (like how tiktok turns collecting into trends,) but out of pure passion and intrigue. sorry for the ramble, ive been thinking about this for so long and i just cant agree more with you on it. i'll probably come back to ramble more in the conments in the morning! sorry hahhehhhe
@GyaruGals2
Yk the internet is getting bad now when ppl are starting to quit using it or are accidentally ending they’re phone addictions bc of how boring it’s gotten
@spectralspectra2282