25th September 2023, 9:48 AM
(This post was last modified: 25th September 2023, 9:48 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
I've been thinking about how steadily the number of sites we visit has dwindled to about... 8 or so, and I've been wondering why. Oh sure, people like me or ABF still go to our favorite out of the way specialist forums here and there, but by and large if you want to watch a video, you go to Youtube, not Cinnemassecre or any of the other sites that we used to bookmark and head out to. Heck the few I did keep visiting for a while just host all their videos on Youtube now, complete with censorship and 1950's style "paid promotional" bits by the very person I wanted to see.
If I want information on other things, more and more Google just serves up reddit as a result, and you know what? I noticed something. People almost never share links to external pages any more. Some still do, and I absolutely appreciate that, but for example the Twitster (Sorry, Twitster X: Rise of Sigma) and Face's Book went and decided to bury any and all external site links as current policy. It just isn't "done" now. So, they keep all their viewers right there on that social media.
The internet is shrinking, and that worries me. It's not that I want the big names to censor less. They can do whatever... I want there to be more than big names, and for the biggest names to shrink dramatically in relevance. That's my worry. We just don't have enough variety out there any more. Consolidation is everywhere.... and everywhere is becoming a small world after all.
If I want information on other things, more and more Google just serves up reddit as a result, and you know what? I noticed something. People almost never share links to external pages any more. Some still do, and I absolutely appreciate that, but for example the Twitster (Sorry, Twitster X: Rise of Sigma) and Face's Book went and decided to bury any and all external site links as current policy. It just isn't "done" now. So, they keep all their viewers right there on that social media.
The internet is shrinking, and that worries me. It's not that I want the big names to censor less. They can do whatever... I want there to be more than big names, and for the biggest names to shrink dramatically in relevance. That's my worry. We just don't have enough variety out there any more. Consolidation is everywhere.... and everywhere is becoming a small world after all.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)