> It did for awhile, until commercialization really took off. Then the incentives became skewed.
Yes—I remember the web as I experienced it in the '90s. It was a much different place from today's web. I'd hate to trade away all the amenities and conveniences of the modern web, but I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to choose the social environment of that internet over today's.
> I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to choose the social environment of that internet over today's.
The social environment of that Internet was a product of access being limited to tech nerds, the wealthy, and college students (in the same way that HN is a more bearable debate environment than Facebook, not because of any moderation choices but because HN is a self-selecting population of people with mostly the same job, class, and general education level). This was never going to endure once Internet access became ubiquitous, as my other comment alluded to.
> In the same way that HN is a more bearable debate environment than Facebook, not because of any moderation choices but because HN is a self-selecting population of people with mostly the same job, class, and general education level.
I think this underrates the importance of moderation, at least at the community level (my experience of HN moderation from the top has been nil, so I can't speak to it). Sure, HN is the way it is because of its community, but that community was not an accident; it was created. Spaces can be made welcoming without becoming cesspools, and to point to the tendency of public spaces to become cesspools doesn't mean that moderation makes no difference.
(Long delayed response because I was posting too fast.)
There was no plausible pathway by which the Internet didn’t become commercialized as access become ubiquitous. Blaming “commercialization” for the Fall of Eden is like building a shoddy bridge that collapses, and then blaming that on gravity: if you didn’t take into account the inevitable, omnipresent force, that’s on you.
> There was no plausible pathway by which the Internet didn’t become commercialized. Blaming “commercialization” for the Fall of Eden is like building a shoddy bridge that collapses, and then blaming gravity for it: if you didn’t take into account the inevitable, omnipresent force, that’s on you.
All bridges will collapse eventually, but we blame the people who build shoddy bridges, not the people who build bridges that someone else comes along and willfully knocks over. It was inevitable that the internet would decay, but not this quickly, nor into this state.
