Is the internet DEAD / Has capitalism caught up to the internet?

logdog wrote: I miss geocities.

Don't worry duder. I got your back.

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

Thats awesome!

DirtyBird222 wrote: Random fact: Only 6% of the content on the internet is considered mainstream or what normal folk visit on a routine basis. The other 94% is considered the dark web and rarely will you find those sites on a google/yahoo/bing search unless explicitly searched for.

To be clear, this is marketing speak. They call the "dark web" anything that isn't highly popular at the moment. In technical terms, the "dark web" consists of web pages only accessible through a darknet like Tor/I2P/Freenet, and popularity doesn't factor into it.

I don't think outdated information is a problem at all, often it can be helpful. If you don't want to see old information you can filter it out in your search settings.

If the choice is all of it or none of it, I'm good with getting it all and figuring out what of it I want to keep.

Keith Tanner wrote: The difficulty of writing a book and getting it published does set the bar a bit higher. Lots of crap makes it into print, but it's a lower percentage IMO.

There was a good NPR story on "catfish" amazon books recently. Basically:

1) person hires someone in $$$cheap country to generate a book. It is complete crap.
2) Puts book up for sale on amazon
3) pays for fake reviews
4) pays for people to down-rate any negative reviews
5) ends up with a very good selling kindle book

I think many sites are working on solutions to the reviews, but even with the fake ones, I'll take them. I HATE standing at a store looking at a product and having no idea if it is a piece of E36 M3 or not.

I do think in general internet content has come down a notch. There is always really good stuff out there, but it seems to be getting diluted more and more with crap. I used to have just view the news from a search provider and look at whatever seemed interesting. Now if I click on one of those articles, it usually:

A) wants me to log in
B) is full of spam
C) has 25 links to articles like "5 actresses you won't believe play call of duty while taking a dump!"
D) is only a comment or two from a person then a link to the original news article elsewhere

So now I kinda stick to sites where I generally enjoy their articles (ars technical is probably my #1) and only read from there.

I'd say yes and no. It's harder to find relevant info now I think. Especially annoying are those garbage auto-generated sites that come up sometimes. People have become used to getting everything the want right away, that makes it hard to deal with them when you are not able to provide exactly what they want right this instant.

On the other hand, most sites are pretty now. And finding something obscure to buy is easy.

ProDarwin wrote: 25 links to articles like "5 actresses you won't believe play call of duty while taking a dump!"

Links are missing...

ProDarwin wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: The difficulty of writing a book and getting it published does set the bar a bit higher. Lots of crap makes it into print, but it's a lower percentage IMO.

There was a good NPR story on "catfish" amazon books recently. Basically: 1) person hires someone in $$$cheap country to generate a book. It is complete crap. 2) Puts book up for sale on amazon 3) pays for fake reviews 4) pays for people to down-rate any negative reviews 5) ends up with a very good selling kindle book I think many sites are working on solutions to the reviews, but even with the fake ones, I'll take them. I HATE standing at a store looking at a product and having no idea if it is a piece of E36 M3 or not. I do think in general internet content has come down a notch. There is always really good stuff out there, but it seems to be getting diluted more and more with crap. I used to have just view the news from a search provider and look at whatever seemed interesting. Now if I click on one of those articles, it usually: A) wants me to log in B) is full of spam C) has 25 links to articles like "5 actresses you won't believe play call of duty while taking a dump!" D) is only a comment or two from a person then a link to the original news article elsewhere So now I kinda stick to sites where I generally enjoy their articles (ars technical is probably my #1) and only read from there.

The flipside with reviews is I feel like there are some products that get a solid review train going and all of a sudden this POS flashlight is a best seller even though there are vastly superior products out there for a better price.....just no one buys it because there are no reviews.

Don't get me started with clickbait.

The positive side of this is I predict the print media/local stores that weathered the storm will again start gaining in popularity as trusted sources/good deals.

"Good" and honest legit deals are still there, they just require a bit more effort to find. Aside from the commerce portion of it, the internet has made the world pretty small and what use to be only local news pre-internet, can easily become world news now depending on the content.

KyAllroad wrote: One of my problems with the Internet these days is that outdated information doesn't go away. Example: I search for info on a CSP build and keep getting hits for ten year old info/data/builds that don't help me now.

Even just dates on articles/posts/whatever would be nice. A lot of stuff would be easier to filter if you knew it was 2, 3, 8 years old...

You can filter your google search by the date it was posted.... The Google search tools are pretty powerful.

But the internet is just for memes right?

Ebay is still alright. You just need to weed through a lot of crap to find the decent deals/items/sellers.

Enyar wrote: The positive side of this is I predict the print media/local stores that weathered the storm will again start gaining in popularity as trusted sources/good deals.

The word there is gatekeeping. Who do you trust for content, whether it be news or a product review?

moparman76_69 wrote: But the internet is just for memes right?

I thought the internet was for pRon. I'll refrain from further show tunes references.

I won't

Brian wrote:

moparman76_69 wrote: But the internet is just for memes right?

I thought the internet was for pRon. I'll refrain from further show tunes references.

ProDarwin wrote: C) has 25 links to articles like "5 actresses you won't believe play call of duty while taking a dump!"

I thought this article was the entire purpose of the Internet.