Basically forums
The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences
Submitted 2 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research
Comments
Fake4000@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Maybe we’ll use newsgroups for actually talking to people again
ThePantser@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Arr, those be the high seas now
misk@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
The thing is that many people, myself included assumed most were dead and cannibalised by Reddit and Facebook groups. Turns out those specialised places have been running continuously on their own pace. Yeah, threads can still span hundreds of pages but in the end going through them makes you an expert on things overnight ;)
boatswain@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Oh my God, the Something Awful forums are still up: forums.somethingawful.com
LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Bring them back! I for one would rather use a forum over a fucking Discord server any day of the week. At least forums are open, searchable and discoverable. Good luck finding the answer to a question you have that some poor sod like you may have also asked in a Discord server months or years ago.
Wojwo@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
God I hate discord.
beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
And mailing lists!
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Yes, but this time deep web forums that are unsearchable/unindexed so that information is lost forever! (Discord, telegram, matrix)actually that might actually be a return to web 1 forums before search engines were giant and all forum seach engines sucked ass 😂
samus12345@lemm.ee 2 months ago
It is for me, but I have my doubts that the majority will avoid the corporate-owned spaces.
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 months ago
I think it’s always going to be a sort of long-tail phenomenon, with most people involved in the biggest platforms, but a large number of small platforms that attract a minority of the overall population.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
They’re getting so shit people will have no choice. They’re already leaving one alienated group at a time
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I think by now we have figured out the majority of people are garbage and you only want to spend time with a select group. Discord seems to have this figured out.
commander@lemmings.world 2 months ago
Some majorities are bigger than others.
dontbelasagne@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It depends on the discord. I joined a discord where the most narcissistic people were there and they singled me out for whatever reason because I wasn’t just simply going with their thinking. There was another member that thought like me but their own narcissi tendencies made up a conspiracy theory that somehow that was my alt. I didn’t even know the guy irl. It’s a shame as I was interested in the subject matter of the discord but I guess if enough village idiots own a discord, the smart villager is seen as the idiot.
EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
…smaller communities
So like it was before the dawn of Reddit and social media?
Sign me the fuck up. I miss my dumb little websites with a dodgy layout full of terribly cropped gifs.
PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee 2 months ago
But how will we find any of these small sites with the dogshit search is lately.
madjo@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Webrings, index pages, pure chance
kameecoding@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I wasn’t too early, but I joined reddit around the Dota 2 beta, so circa 2012, and damn the site became more and more garbage the more people it had, most comments became nothing but karma farming one liners, references or snide shit.
Communities grew into massive echo chambers, quality of discussions went down the drain.
JoYo@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
now they’re heading to lemmy to do the same thing
kameecoding@lemmy.world 2 months ago
meh, lemmy is pretty stagnant from what I have seen, plus you can create your own instance and mostly defederate from a lot of stuff.
baatliwala@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Real issue is how much effort are people willing to put to maintain those communities.
cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Just like as it was in the past
Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Check out Neocities, a great community of indie web fans, built in the spirit of the old GeoCities sites.
Some really great sites there, it really captures that late 90’s to early 2000’s internet vibes.
AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Definitely depends on the site because I’ve seen some impressive modern looking sites in the past, but a lot of sites I find on there definitely encapsulate that vibe in a great way.
SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
The future is the past!
Glent@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Is there something like a masterlist of forums. Id like to join some but dont know where to look.
turtle@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The best I can think of off hand is to look at the mobile apps that are designed to interact with traditional forums, because they will have directories of all the ones that are integrated with them. For example, Tapatalk and Fora Communities. You should be able to find thousands of forums categorized in those apps? I’ve never used these apps myself, but have heard of them.
futatorius@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Curated experiences are the reason we’re in the shit right now.
But yeah, maybe boutique curated exepriences will somehow be qualitatively different, and not just finer market segmentation.
misk@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I think they meant human-curated.
LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
I’d say genuine. Genuine experiences. Sharing shit for sharing’s sake. Not for better SEO. Not for profit. Just unadulterated human expression.
That’s how I envision using the internet for entertainment in the near future. I’ll still use the shitty corporate sites when I must, for transactional browsing. I’m not going to pretend I can push Amazon, Microsoft, Google, online banking, etc. out of my life just like that.
But I will actively seek authentic spaces. They will be a tad smaller than your average social network, Reddit, and whatnot. But I’m certain they’re out there and more people will join me in this search and populate these small spaces as time goes on.
Lemmy, Mastodon, the IndieWeb movement. The first steps. I hope to find more!
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 months ago
Not all of Reddit works, but some of it does for some people, and the reason it works for them is because the moderators shape communities that the community members enjoy participating in.
Personally, I think active communities below the Dunbar number (about 150) in size are some of the most rewarding to participate in, long term. But, there are always a lot of people who flock to wherever the biggest crowds are.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It costs money to run these things so monetization always rears its head.
misk@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
It can be commoditised but it’s hard to gain mindshare against monopolies like Facebook. It doesn’t really cost that much to run a small board / forum / chatgroup.
Winterfrost@lemm.ee 2 months ago
First the internet needs to rise against techno-fascism!!
_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
yes, but where could we find something like that?
singletona@lemmy.world 2 months ago
circledot@feddit.org 2 months ago
Links like that feel like the time I first had access to the Internet. Kinda weird but very very interesting. Thank you.
singletona@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Full disclosure: I’ve been part of that cluster of communities for a couple years now. Best advice i have to give to anyone is to take their time. The speed of conversation often slows way WAY down.
ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The future of the web may be relearning the browser (and other tools)
SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
And preferably a bit harder to use to keep the script kiddies out.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Most small group forums have manual user validation with very specific questions.
I’ve seen stuff like “what is on the the 5th page of the user guide for this product” along with language/culture specific questions you can’t just easily google on forums that are focused on a specific area
crawancon@lemm.ee 2 months ago
so lemmy.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Small communities where one can talk about specific subjects? Man there’s something like that already and people can run it from their own computers too, forgot the name though.
Rooty@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Thank fuck the corporate silo era is (slowly) coming to an end. And they tried so hard to turn it into TV 2.0.
Shardikprime@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So a field of circle jerks
Oh how the mighty have fallen
shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 2 months ago
And that’s how it started. are we approaching a big crunch of sorts?
TheRedSpade@lemmy.world 2 months ago
First infinity didn’t go great. Not sure I want to see more.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Divide and conquer I guess
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Does the Networking Effect suddenly no longer apply to internet applications? Seems like we’re just seeing people gradually migrate from older and less functional applications like Twitter and Facebook over to newer and more functional applications like BlueSky and RedNote.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Heck no.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
So the past of the internet?
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The original web 3 was supposed to be a return to form of web 1, with the good stuff of web 2 and decentralized. Then cryptobros hijacked it
horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world 2 months ago
We’re taking it back.
…flipboard.com/…/how-to-get-started-in-the-fedive…
There’s more than just lemmy
PugEnjoyer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I don’t think I’ve really seen any literature about web3 that wasn’t a crypto scam in a trench coat. Do you have any links or info about the original goals of web3?
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
History rhymes and all that
ThePantser@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“Time flows like a river, and history repeats.” -Secret of Mana
667@lemmy.radio 2 months ago
Everything old is new again.