The internet is fun
Re: The internet isn’t fun anymore, and it’s everyone's fault. Ginoz (Gino?), I hear you. That was a shitty experience you had. God forbid anything I write ever ends up on HN. And I hear you about ye olde internet as well. I got started on the internet in 1993, so I did get to see the early days. I was 13 then and utterly mesmerized by it, and sure, part of me misses some of that.
But I have a different opinion: the internet is still super fun! Look at all the great options we have as bloggers, for example. I've used Squarespace, deployed via point and click; a Hugo site deployed via GitHub and Netlify; a Gopher phlog and a Gemini gemlog, both deployed via rsync; and now this one on Bear, deployed via copy and paste from Obsidian. What fun to get to try all these different approaches, explore the different communities, and find what resonates most with me. (Bear is hitting the spot, I must say.)
My notes sync ~instantly between my work computer, my phone, and my personal computer. Every photo I take auto-syncs to the cloud, and if it's a pic of any of my family members, it's auto-shared with my wife. We can view these photos anywhere we have a cell signal.
I have a map of the entire world (and the stars, Mars, and probably more) on my phone, and I can zoom from space all the way to my house. Or to the Taj Mahal.
I can get an answer to just about any question I could think up at just about any time, and I can teach myself just about any topic.
I can video chat with my kids when I'm on the other side of the world. For no additional cost. To those of us old enough to remember the price of international long-distance calling in the '80s: how remarkable is that??
And so on.
The internet is amazing. And yeah, just like IRL, it's also chock full of horrible people and motives and experiences these days. But I bet there were plenty of assholes on Usenet and IRC back in their heydey as well.
In my opinion, there's still plenty of fun to be had on the internet. Probably more than ever. The trick is to find your happy places and avoid the nasty places. Kudos to Bear for being one of my happy ones.