Well with its relentless commercialisation it also brought in loads of trash tier entertainment, splintered attention, intense bubblification and collective amnesia for a significant part of its userbase.
All the potential for good that made users so enthusiastic (as we now know: over-enthusiastic) about it until the early 00s (maybe 10s) still exist, it's just big tech and other businesses have hijacked the community-driven governance and narrative for private gains.
All the cool ((internet) cultural, but not necessarily technical) stuff that existed and exists... you'd never find out about it today if you weren't there and already know what to look for (and even then search result quality has gone down the drain due to massive spam. Not that you can reasonably filter search results to not include businesses or other SEO spam for instance...). Of course things that don't make money/grab attention eventually are "rationalised away" or forgotten about in this ungodly screaming contest.
Not all is bad; it's just the drop in average quality of substance and intransparency of its gatekeepers that worries me. I always keep my hope that a diverse array of communities continue to exist in which cool things happen on a regular basis. Mainstream social media is not this place though.
All the potential for good that made users so enthusiastic (as we now know: over-enthusiastic) about it until the early 00s (maybe 10s) still exist, it's just big tech and other businesses have hijacked the community-driven governance and narrative for private gains.
All the cool ((internet) cultural, but not necessarily technical) stuff that existed and exists... you'd never find out about it today if you weren't there and already know what to look for (and even then search result quality has gone down the drain due to massive spam. Not that you can reasonably filter search results to not include businesses or other SEO spam for instance...). Of course things that don't make money/grab attention eventually are "rationalised away" or forgotten about in this ungodly screaming contest.
Not all is bad; it's just the drop in average quality of substance and intransparency of its gatekeepers that worries me. I always keep my hope that a diverse array of communities continue to exist in which cool things happen on a regular basis. Mainstream social media is not this place though.