And what was the state of Linux when proprietary instant messaging apps were popular?
back then implying the stone age
Listen here, fucko. Some of us are still in denial of our midlife crises
How was life back then?
Submitted 1 year ago by zephyr@lemmy.world to general@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f32c48ba-ba8d-45b2-b8ca-a8deae159733.jpeg
Comments
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
klintelmeh@feddit.de 1 year ago
hahahaha
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It was the best of times, before windows had adverts built in, and before Google turned evil.
Your online life and real life rarely overlapped, and Linux wasn’t as popular because privacy was less of an issue.
Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Wizz and the general sounds of MSN were fun, but maybe it’s just because I was younger.
For Linux, Pidgin was solid.
JokeDeity@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Everyone’s saying this like Pidgin was Linux only but I used it for years on Windows.
Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
:| should absolutely not have been big, wide-open eyes. That would be O_O. :| should be absolutely stonefaced, like an old Korean getting their photo taken. Zero facial expression, signifying “i am not amused” or somesuch.
wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Forgot the most important:
🍆
B====D
Hubi@feddit.de 1 year ago
spoiler
( . Y . )
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Where my ICQ friends at?
Uh-Oh!
Mereo@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I still remember my ICQ number! You can contact me at 38969359
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dang! Don’t know my number, but my screen name was the same back then.
troydowling@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Outside of IM, in the mid-2000s the Internet was more of a space of personal expression and burgeoning e-commerce.
There was Geocities and Anglefire where anyone could create a personal homepage with rudimentary HTML skills. You could show off your personality and share your interests, and (some) others would be excited to find you and sign your guest book. You’d be excited every time the hit counter on your page went up.
Talking in real-time, over IRC usually, was the first taste of true globalisation for many. There were other, older forums around like BBCs, but these were even more techno-niche nerd havens. The web forum (PHPBB) later came along and created what I consider to be the protoweb of what we have today. Profiles, display pictures, post counts, threads and boards, etc.
Another large difference was that the Internet was still a very collaborative space. Services usually had open APIs, so that you could write or use software that brought the services you wanted into the format you prefer. Think: all of your IM accounts in one messaging app, all of your website news feeds delivered to an RSS reader, and data that easily flowed from one space to another. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before these same services saw the business sense in restricting users from exporting their data, thus confining them to “walled gardens” where they were readily subjected to ads, and without recourse to leave. And thus the API died.
There was essentially no presence of celebrity on the net as we know it today. Before MySpace, at least, you would be required to go out and search for Sean Connery’s personal blog, or Paris Hiltons fashion tips. Today, it’s difficult to avoid these things being pressed upon you. At this point in time, you chased people, now it seems the web has them chasing you.
Commerce was a commonplace part of the net as early as the 90s, depending on your idea of commonplace. Nobody trusted computers with their financial data like credit cards. Giving your address to a seller felt wildly reckless… until it didn’t. A little bookstore called Amazon started the novel idea of efficient online sales with less of the burden of storage, eBay rose seemingly overnight, Elon Musk made his fortune selling PayPal, we all collected Net Beans like they’d be worth anything.
Video playback and other multimedia features bled their way into the web from the millennium onward. Online journalism felt like it was in it’s fittest shape.
There was a huge culture of shareware in every market. Shareware games, file utilities, media players, everything. It was how you hoped to be discovered as a software author. We’d load diskettes with Bonzai Buddy and cursor themes and trade them with friends in break rooms and schoolyards. The coolest among you know how to find pirated games and bootleg software.
Comment sections were truly, deeply, disgusting hives of scum and villainy.
ace_garp@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You’ve written a wonderful recap of those times.
Maybe these are typos: BBCs --> BBSs (Bulletin Board System) BonzaiBuddy --> BonziBuddy (complete garbage virtual assistant)
Also, newsgroups were an early way to post and discuss with interesting people from many parts of the world. It was a mindblowing shift from the existing media landscape, which used the firehose-delivery-methods of TV, newspaper and radio.
wetferret@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I always knew (*) as the cat/dog butthole.
evatronic@lemm.ee 1 year ago
My favorite bit of trivia on this subject is that in Perl, if you have something list-like with lots of potentially empty values where the length isn’t the same as the number of things in the list, you can force list context and get a quick count by assigning to an empty list.
The end result is the unofficial “buttse” operator:
=()=.
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 1 year ago
msn messenger was the closest you ever got to discord. bbm was the equivalent of the exclusive in-group you get with apple iMessage users nowadays. both were pretty fun but pretty primitive!
PartyBot@feddit.uk 1 year ago
(Y)
Ashiette@lemmy.one 1 year ago
There was Pidgin for multipurpose IM. But it was ugly and didn’t have the functionnalities that mess.be gave your MSN Messenger with Messenger+.
To have those functionalities there was Kmess. It gave you username colours, chat while offline, etc. And it was (for the time) visually pleasant !
I’m quite surprised. The website still exists !!! Kmess Website
pornhubfan@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
AOL actually made a native Linux implementation of AIM, but they stopped updating it, so it got pretty out of date. I mostly used Gaim/Pidgin to connect to AIM/Yahoo/MSN and later on Google Talk through XMPP.
XbSuper@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The heart should be symbolized by <3 not (L)
Guadin@k.fe.derate.me 1 year ago
I've only been seeing <3 for about 10 years. Back in the MSN days it was (L) all the way.
Savvy95@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And lol meant lots if love ❤️
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“Honey your grandfather died lol”
voxl@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Oh god. The :$ brought back many many good (or bad depending on who you ask… ;)) memories… late nights :3
kratoz29@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Back then?
ಠ_ಠ
Siegfried@lemmy.world 1 year ago
:) :| :/ :_ :__
Saturdaycat@kbin.social 1 year ago
(^_^) it was escapism from a crap IRL, 2000s kicked my ass but AIM and MSN were my save haven from a bad teenhood (0_o );
rich@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Oh man I remember the msn messenger days
Minutebox@kbin.social 1 year ago
@@@@ : - )
moose@reddthat.com 1 year ago
It was great because none of them secured their protocols.
Everyone on Linux just used Pidgin and you had all your contacts and chats on every service all in one client.
cwagner@lemmy.cwagner.me 1 year ago
JokeDeity@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I started with Trillian on Windows and eventually went to Pidgin on Windows because Trillian was a resource hog when I used it. Fun times. Now everyone’s just unified on Discord, lol.
JokeDeity@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I used Pidgin every day for about 15 years on Windows. Different times. Sometimes it feels, better times.