The second is very general but also something I'm sure many of you are sick of hearing about and that is that there are MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY think pieces on how the internet has become "too corporate." That the core web (think of ANY website that even people outside internet culture can name - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Google, YouTube, you get the idea - Wikipedia being the only one that seems to have actively avoided that complaint) has become too much of people's online time and "why can't we go back to the late 90s and early 00s?" and I make NO effort in hiding that is a part of why I made this website (I used to use The Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine" to find examples to draw from as inspiration). I'm also not the only one who explained it nor am I even close to the only source. Those are there in case I'm SOMEHOW your first source and want to know more or you just want to get lost in the web. That said, I don't think people who use popular websites are dumb or even to blame (that would make me a hypocrite - I check Tumblr everyday and Wikipedia is still a useful resource for the most part). That said, one thing the internet has now that internet of this era did not is diversity. All you need to do is play Pico's School on Newgrounds to get just HOW different that era was (I will still stand by it - and its "clean" counterpart - as biting satire on the abysmal state of school shootings in America though so take my opinion how you want). So the idea of having individual websites made by individual people, all expressing themselves in their own weird way actually appeals to me(see Note 1). I also know that the idea of learning how to code and get everything "up and running" for a website seems like a bit much but I do defend this practice as I get a THOUSAND times the personality from someone's own website full with a neverending repeat of a jpeg over a modern social media profile which, many copy eachother so we all look the same regardless of what site we're on (if I wanted a Twitter accout, I'd GET a Twitter account - The closest I'll ever get to calling it X is "Brand X" (yes I DID just link to the movie) because a. that's the dignity it deserves and b. can anyone really say "X account" without thinking of porn? EDIT: I just found out I'm NOT the first or only person who thought this)
.While I'm on this, I want to talk a little bit about the language we use around the Core Web. To start with the big one, saying that a site is "addictive" or acknowledging you visit more times than is healthy and you know it...that is not a good thing. Addiction is a disease, firstly. It shouldn't be on our devices, in our hands, that we can access at any minute. I make no effort in hiding being neurodivergent and so you could make the argument of me being "too autistic" in this moment, and that's fine but back up the notion that "addictive = good" with at least ONE example. Most people I know can't even say that about the Core Web anymore! Secondly, I feel like a lot of these sites have cheapened what they set out to do. I mean if I want to "Follow" someone on Meta or Twitter or LinkedIn (the joy of modern industry networking...) or ANY of "the big ones," what I'd expect is to see everything they posted in the order they posted it. On many of the sites, it's just "what do we THINK you want to see" - most of it IS shit you don't want to see, with no guarantee who you Followed or Friended will actually appear in your feed (this is why I prefer Tumblr to the others because at LEAST you get these features - actually seeing things people you follow posted and in order of when they posted it...how is the bar THAT fucking low!?). Then you have sites like YouTube where you "Subscribe" to someone...except no, because some channels these days offer a Membership program which you have to pay for to unlock exclusive content. Many creators I've seen that do that ALSO offer Patreon or Ko-Fi memberships (I get the pushback of "these are small artists, not millionaires, why attack the idea of them making an income?" I'm not. I'm attacking the idea that internet connections don't MEAN anything anymore. Also questioning why Google pays it's creators so little that they NEED 4 different crowdsourcing options to break through). We also get AI making social media accounts, meaning even the interactions that ARE supposed to be "real" aren't (and...WHY does that exist on websites that we KNOW sell our data?!). My point is this - if friending, following, subscribing or connecting to people simply "isn't enough", AND you can't be guaranteed you're connecting to a real person anymore, what IS the point?! The idea behind these sites WAS to connect us to other human beings. I mean if we're not being sold connections anymore, what ARE we getting out of these sites?! That is less a deliberate attack and more of a simple question.
To add even more "I hate THIS about the internet"...streaming services and digital libraries. Now when I say digital libraries, I'm talking less websites like The Internet Archive and more your Steams, your GOGs, your Google Plays. What's my issue? In those digital storefronts and streaming services, you pay to access movies, games, music, shows, in theory it's "a little bit of everything all of the time". However, what really annoys me about these digitial purchases and subscriptions is when they take away content. Streaming services, this is bizarre in that I tried to watch Invader ZIM Enter The Florpus on Netflix but it simply wasn't there. It's a Netflix exclusive movie. Netflix produced it, they brought it back, in terms of company hands, it's their movie. So riddle me this Batman? How am I supposed to watch this Netflix produced content if Netflix isn't hosting it anymore on their Netflix storefronts? "Get a VPN?" Netflix blocks me every time I try (this ties into a devaluation of art that I've talked about on my anti-ai page - but the idea that archival is becoming a necessity for certain art to survive is just terrifying). I'm sure you can name OTHER examples of this, even going as far as "oh, I need multiple streaming services to see all the films in ONE series" (DVDs really DO outclass streaming services in a lot of ways!). However, the bigger one I've seen is digital libraries simply pulling content bought from it and at no point actually giving a refund for the money people spent who were expecting a full product. That's literally looking at ordinary people and demanding money for nothing. All corporatism on the internet. That said...you CAN still find art online that is free from the grip of these predatory fucking scumbags who want ALL the money in the world without offering anything of value. In many pages linked and even some social media, I do my best to draw attention to these artists and in some respects, ways to actually find art that has been discarded because it "wasn't profitable" (losing art is VERY common but...why should a complete work burn simply because it wasn't profitable? Not REALLY related to the internet but entertainment media's exploitative bullshit but...why should a complete work never see the light of day because the people who put money behind it thought it'd do better as a tax write off? If someone knows what I'm talking about and has those products, yes more than one exists, please release that shit onto the Internet Archive!).
Now I know that all this is something that wont change the internet overnight or even "at all." I mean lets get real, the internet has its profitability in this style of eyeballs on phones. Its REALLY hard to tear yourself away from an algorithm that is designed to grab your attention as much as humanly possible so the website has more traffic. The fact that companies are making people complacent in inactive thinking DOES legitimately terrify me. The internet is a communications tool that is just a universal part of life now. There's no way in HELL a company isn't going to mine every bit of profit possible from that statistic. As much as I'd like to say out loud that this is my "ULTIMATE WAY OF FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE MAN" (my "Guide" is just my way of drawing attention to what can be done in the moment), this is actually more of my personal little corner. Where I can write about my cats, link to other cool websites and show off my art. There ARE other websites out there besides "the big ones" and my own and some of the others do offer a legitimately fun internet time without the hassle of real world drama or algorithmically generated content to keep you complacent (BIG SpaceHey, Dreamwidth and Newgrounds fan - if you couldn't tell. I have a love/hate relationship with Tumblr, on one hand the people running the site are fucking idiots, even by the standards of people running social media. On the other hand...it has great communities(see Note 2) and a chronological news feed. Others I love are in my linkpage). The way I see it, the more websites I can find in that space that are away from the bullshit of the modern era of social media is a win for me.
So...yeah, that's why.