Posts tagged "Nostalgia"

The Internet Peaked Around 2012 and We've Been Coasting on Momentum Since

There was a moment, somewhere around 2012, when the internet was as good as it was ever going to get. We did not know it at the time. We thought it would keep getting better. Instead it got worse, and we have been coasting on momentum ever since. This is not just nostalgia. The structural incentives that made the early internet good have reversed. What we have now is optimised for different things, and those things are mostly bad for the people using it.

The Things You're Nostalgic for Were Someone Else's Dark Times

I catch myself being nostalgic for the early 2000s. The internet felt new. Phones were for calling. Social media had not eaten everything yet. Things seemed simpler. Then I remember that the early 2000s included a financial crisis that destroyed people’s retirements, a war that killed hundreds of thousands, and a job market that locked out an entire generation. The things I am nostalgic for, the MSN Messenger conversations, the forums, the sense of possibility, existed alongside genuine suffering that I was privileged enough to miss.