does anyone else feel enslaved?

When I was growing up the internet was a place to be liberated from the world say what you want to say, be whoever you want and form genuine communities with shared interests. Now the internet feels like a tool to enslave the mind with identity echo chambers and any deviation leads you to being banned and blocked shunned and silenced within a void that is inescapable. Novel unique websites coded manually by hobbyists running servers for free in the commons allowing people access to the free flow of information under the banner of “information should be free” has largely gone away with corpratisation. I miss the days when the internet was populated largely by nerds aiming to make a better world not this controlled censored hell hole of profiteering.

1984,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

I miss it too, and even more now that I got reminded how awesome it can be to talk like this without a big american corp in the middle.

I feel like big tech has killed the fun very much. Before you had individuals building web sites, and you felt happy to see new creative sites. People didn’t create them for money but to show off their skills and create fun and useful sites.

Now the web is turning into cable TV as the corps have completely destroyed it with ads. I think we need web sites and services where ads are banned and where people create things for fun.

The fediverse can help with this since many small servers allow people to share the load and the cost.

Foresight,

Yeah, I went on funnyjunk the other day after reminding myself and it was dry and humourless back in the day it was a barrel of laughs.

SensualSass,
@SensualSass@slippy.xyz avatar

@Foresight Not at all young man

ricecake,

Regardless of your opinion. Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you think is right, even if it means disaproval or social pressure.


<span style="color:#323232;">The Man in the Mirror
</span><span style="color:#323232;">by Dale Wimbrow
</span><span style="color:#323232;">When you get all you want and you struggle for self,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">and the world makes you king for a day,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">then go to the mirror and look at yourself
</span><span style="color:#323232;">and see what that man has to say.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">For it isn't your mother, your father or wife
</span><span style="color:#323232;">whose judgment upon you must pass,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">but the man, whose verdict counts most in your life
</span><span style="color:#323232;">is the one staring back from the glass.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">He's the fellow to please,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">never mind all the rest.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">For he's with you right to the end,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">and you've passed your most difficult test
</span><span style="color:#323232;">if the man in the glass is your friend.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">And think you're a wonderful guy,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
</span><span style="color:#323232;">If you can't look him straight in the eye.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">You can fool the whole world,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">down the highway of years,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">and take pats on the back as you pass.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But your final reward will be heartache and tears
</span><span style="color:#323232;">if you've cheated the man in the glass.
</span>
jamisonnbishop,
@jamisonnbishop@midwest.social avatar

Nice hyperbole. No, I don’t feel enslaved. Give me a fucking break. Enslaved, really? Be the fucking change you want to see, if you are feeling “enslaved.”

The issue with the corporate internet is that running large websites cost money. The larger the community, the more costs it takes to run. The balance between moderation and a free-for-all is delicate. Fully open allows too much spam and trolling to still remain useful, too much and people start writing in code to bypass censors. You want to go back to seedy chatrooms with a couple dozen regulars, I’m sure you can still find a few places to scratch that itch.

Federation is a great concept, and we’ll see where it goes, but social media splintering from a Twitter/Meta/Reddit stranglehold to a more splintered collection of sites has both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, when everyone is in one place, you get a lot of idiots. On the other, you have to go to multiple places to find everyone/everything you’re looking for. Seems a lot of people like the ease of one-stop-shopping, so that’s how we got here.

vd1n,

100% at least by marketing and politics.

Sorchist,

You can still make websites, fam. And you can go to websites other people have made. Nothing ever changed there. You just left it behind and went onto social media.

Also if you're banned from a place, you're not in a "void that is inescapable," you're just not in that place anymore. You can go to other places. If you think not being on a particular piece of social media is a "void that is inescapable," you've decided that everything outside that social media system is a "void," and that's on you.

nieceandtows,

For me it kind of feels this way, because there’s only a handful of sites I visit regularly, and if one of those sites is unavailable, it feels like I don’t know what to do. In a sense, I am trapped in this new browsing habit that has made me get used to constant short form content that is exciting, and a lack of it is now crippling. At least replacing reddit with lemmy has helped me recover a little bit, because I find that I’m unable to stay on lemmy for hours at a time like I was on reddit.

meyotch,

The relative lack of content is an actual benefit to me too. When I doomscroll too long, it stops being rewarding and I now find something IRL to do. A much healthier mindset to occupy.

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