Things the internet's ruined

[Mr B]

Tutorials are educational, I enjoy them immensely,

Forums are just crap, full of opinionated clowns that want to argue for any reason, Or for the sake of arguing,

[donradcliffe]

I'm afraid that modern communications may have destroyed the South Pacific island culture that I loved. With no TV, radio, cell phones, etc., we sat around and talked, played the guitar and sang. I may write a book about that.

[Jdeuel]

I always remind my kids, if you get something for 'free' (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube), then YOU are the product.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by sepharad

It destroyed the small antiques store business. Ebay shattered this entire community of small family owned businesses.

Small bookstores. Crushed them, especially used bookstores. Amazon obliterated them.

Nautical chart shops. Poof.

I agree, and I disagree. Indeed it has hurt or destroyed many small businesses. At the same time, it has help countless small businesses expand their markets and reach people.

Again, it is a tool. Amazon likewise has helped and hurt small companies. Many small companies use Amazon web services to expand their small business or to reach people they other wise wouldn't have.

There are several small businesses I buy from around the country that don't use Amazon, but I found through the Internet. Because they have a website, I can easily browse their inventory to a large extent.

The biggest issue I have with the Internet is that it allows and often encourages people to not think. They don't have to because they can just go online to get their answer; overnight something they should have planned ahead for; get an answer to justify their position, whether or not it is accurate, etc.

Another issue I have is the temporary nature of many things. As someone earlier pointed out, the information is here today, but in a decade or often less, it is gone. This is true in business too. Everything is often on the cloud with little or no readily available backup.

In many ways the Internet is like a chart plotter! (uh oh, I think I just opened Pandora's box!). It is good and bad.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by RiverRat37

... How is the original poster's life any better for having found out if Rembrandt is the first name or the surname? What's more, after going to all that trouble they didn't even give us the answer! ...

They did, in the passage they quoted.

[Mike OReilly]

The Internet is a tool, just like broadcast television and the printing press before it. It's neither good nor bad, but definitely leads to many consequences.

To me, there are two significant and far-reaching effects, the impacts of which are still evolving. The first is the death of expertise. This is an overly-dramatic statement of the problem, but we see it play out here all the time. Some people think five minutes of Googling puts them on equal standing with actual experts in a given field. At best, it's frustrating. But at worst, it's downright dangerous.

Another double-edged sword is the way the Internet builds communities of like-minded people. Used to be we were restrained by geography, but not anymore.

Given where we are talking about this, the positives are rather obvious (yay CF ). But the darker side is that it also fosters communities of wingnuts who would normally be relatively isolated and alone in their odd-ball views. This reinforces and magnifies their influence, giving them far more significance than they would normally have.

[Jdeuel]

Originally Posted by GordMay

They did, in the passage they quoted.

And they worked for the knowledge and had an adventure in the process. That's a much fonder memory and a much more interesting story than, "I Googled it."

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by boatman61

One of the problems with the Internet is the fact it can be edited and previous facts/statements/opinions made to disappear forever without trace..
Take most people's Holy Grail of Information Wikipedia.. anyone can edit over previous script erasing previous information to suit agendas..
Take today's Cancel Culture with Literature for example, hundreds of books are being banned or re-edited because they don't meet some stupid extreme agenda over culture, race, whatever..
The beauty of Hard Copy is short of a Hitler, or a religious nutcase who felt a need to burn Harry Potter and other 'Ungodly works' there will always be the 'The Original' available for those who wish to seek it out..
The Internet however is once censored it is forever so.

It's not that easy to edit Wikipedia, and with all the eyeballs on it, fact distortion is usually caught quickly. They also monitor by frequency of activity on hot topics. But as already mentioned, it's always best to get as close as possible to original sources... and Wikipedia almost always provides links to those.

Another thing about the Internet is that it's easy to copy and back up information, to protect against those who try to alter mainstream sources, or later deny earlier information. You can even go back in time on the Internet, if you suspect that a site has been amended or altered.

The Internet requires a couple of things from its users for maximum benefit:

1. The skills to make deep searches. Just like with conventional libraries, searching for specific and reliable information takes some skills and patience, and some discernment as to what sources are believed or rejected.
2. ...an open mind. If you only follow and trust opinionated (aka biased) sites that happen to agree with you... then that's all you'll find.

[Lemsteraak]

Good question, I wonder if creativity has been a casualty of the Internet

Now it is just so easy just to copy an idea, why create?


on a personal note. I used to love to look over charts and maps in wonder. Now I can go on Google maps and it is all there before me. Where is the adventure in that?

[Tetepare]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

I'm afraid that modern communications may have destroyed the South Pacific island culture that I loved. With no TV, radio, cell phones, etc., we sat around and talked, played the guitar and sang. I may write a book about that.

True. My fault.


I often opined that the islanders should toss the telephone exchanges, internet, and satellite earth stations into the sea, and go back to the old way of life.

Problem is, I'm the one that put a lot of that stuff out there. Manihiki, Majuro, Munda. My fault. Rarotonga, Rotuma, Rakahanga, Penryhn, Palau, Pitcairn, Pago, Pohnpei. Check. The list goes on.

And when they got any sort of real internet speed and smart phones the #1 use was BoobTube. Not logistics, not building small business, not even keeping in touch with family. Videos. Heck, Chuuk became the top Pacific spot that uploaded home porn to the point that everyone knew multiple people on Chuuk who was in their own home brewed porn video.

It wasn't all my fault. There were others. Sold as development through connectivity, it's done little of real value. Who needs 5G on Rarotonga? Seriously? It's a 15 minute trip to anywhere. It's all about entertainment.

My bad.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

The Internet is a tool, just like broadcast television and the printing press before it. It's neither good nor bad, but definitely leads to many consequences.
To me, there are two significant and far-reaching effects, the impacts of which are still evolving. The first is the death of expertise...

"The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters" is a 2017 nonfiction book [1] by Tom Nichols. It is an expansion of a 2014 article [2], published in The Federalist.

[1] Book ➥ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...h-of-expertise
[2] Full article ➥ https://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17...-of-expertise/

[GordMay]

How the other half Googles

An experimental interface for Google [Search Atlas] returns results for the same query from worldwide versions of the search engine. For example, an image search for the word ‘God’ — automatically translated into local languages — reflects the obvious global variation in dominant religions. But it also reveals that far-apart countries might see the same results, whereas neighbours could be shown different images because they’re separated by an ‘information border’. The project is available to only a few people at the moment, but researchers are considering how to widen access.

More ➥ https://www.wired.com/story/tool-sho...ts-vary-world/

Search Atlas ➥ https://searchatlas.org/

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

1. ...an open mind. If you only follow and trust opinionated (aka biased) sites that happen to agree with you... then that's all you'll find.

Very true, but it's actually far worse than that.

If you make no effort to follow any particular type of site, and just let social media, video and news aggregator sites feed you sources which are designed to keep you "engaged," then your own biases are being amplified and fed back to you.

People with fringe views don't even realize their ideas are bizarre. They read and watch other people reinforcing those views all day long, and naturally come to believe that everyone feels that way.

I set my browser to clear cookies at the end of each browser session. I never log on to anything until I need to. I close the browser regularly. I don't get any "personalized" content so I'm free to make up my own mind what to follow.

The other result of this is I get a generic presentation of what YouTube or a news site thinks the average person would engage with, since they can't personalize it for me. It's quite depressing to see the cesspool of drivel which passes for information and entertainment these days. And it says a lot about the "average person."

[StoneCrab]

Originally Posted by taxwizz

And yet....There are still people who don't believe in vaccines.
Incredible.

And then there are those who accept that an experimental RNA therapy which bypassed any animal or human trials as a "vaccine" when it bears none of the vaccine traits.

[Lake-Effect]

^ ^ ^

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Very true, but it's actually far worse than that.

If you make no effort to follow any particular type of site, and just let social media, video and news aggregator sites feed you sources which are designed to keep you "engaged," then your own biases are being amplified and fed back to you.

People with fringe views don't even realize their ideas are bizarre. They read and watch other people reinforcing those views all day long, and naturally come to believe that everyone feels that way.

I agree. (...so is this itself a fringe or bizarre idea, and we just reinforced it for each other? )

For that reason (and others - primarily their time-suck) I'm not on "social media". No Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. If it wasn't for CF, I wouldn't have an Internet presence. My wife is on FB, but unlike me is mostly apolitical, and just follows her friends (from real life), family, some local groups, and a few hobbies.