07-30-2004, 09:02 AM
Hi,
While I agree with pretty much all you've said regarding the deterioration of the WWW, mail etc., I think there's one part of the net besides ftp that's still useable and has suffered only slightly in quality over the last years: Usenet. I find it simply amazing how newsgroups have managed to keep up their high standard. There are lots of groups with intelligent people discussing and sharing information on a high level, and spam is only a minor nuisance there. If I seek information, often I find it there instead of the WWW.
And usenet has a good chance to survive the ever-increasing amount of stupid people using the internet. It has survived the wave of AOL users in the 1990s, and it looks like it will survive the attack of the completely stupid and broken Google Groups, so I have high hopes about usenet's future. It has been there before WWW, and I hope it will still be there (and useable) once the WWW has become completely useless.
It still works because usenet users are mostly limited to intelligent people (stupids won't find usenet, and if they find it, will think it's boring - it's text only, with no flashing, colorful images!), and peer pressure still works nicely there. Sure, there are the binaries and warez groups, but you can just ignore them and all is well.
-Kylearan
Quote:But all parts of it [the Internet] (with the exception, maybe, of ftp) are well on their way down the toilet.
While I agree with pretty much all you've said regarding the deterioration of the WWW, mail etc., I think there's one part of the net besides ftp that's still useable and has suffered only slightly in quality over the last years: Usenet. I find it simply amazing how newsgroups have managed to keep up their high standard. There are lots of groups with intelligent people discussing and sharing information on a high level, and spam is only a minor nuisance there. If I seek information, often I find it there instead of the WWW.
And usenet has a good chance to survive the ever-increasing amount of stupid people using the internet. It has survived the wave of AOL users in the 1990s, and it looks like it will survive the attack of the completely stupid and broken Google Groups, so I have high hopes about usenet's future. It has been there before WWW, and I hope it will still be there (and useable) once the WWW has become completely useless.
It still works because usenet users are mostly limited to intelligent people (stupids won't find usenet, and if they find it, will think it's boring - it's text only, with no flashing, colorful images!), and peer pressure still works nicely there. Sure, there are the binaries and warez groups, but you can just ignore them and all is well.
-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider