The emergence of social media has destroyed all the small communities to standardize communication and information.

It’s a bit of a digital version of rural exodus. And since 2017/2018, I’ve noticed that everything that, in my opinion, represented the internet has disappeared.

I’ve known Lemmy for a few hours and I feel like I’m back in the early spirit of the internet.

  • chunes@lemmy.world
    7·
    3 days ago

    Whenever I get overwhelmed by the modern web, I go to http://wiby.me/ and click “surprise me…”

    It’s a search engine that only spits out “real” webpages that were made by people like you and me. Very refreshing.

    • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
      2·
      3 days ago

      Thank you for sharing. It’s painful to realize in hindsight that those websites were peak internet.

      They lack polish, but they were all a labour of love. No enshittification, no selling things, no corporate influence, no shit posting.

      Everything had a purpose, every post took effort, and it was all about sharing experiences or knowledge.

      I really miss that internet.

      EDIT: correcting gibberish 🤭

    • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      If I had a lot of money I would fund the creation of a new search engine. It would operate entirely on a white list model. And every website on it would be reviewed by people, for people. No posts from any social media site would be allowed; only small webpages. To be featured in the engine, sites would have to have verifiable human origins. So personal blogs made by real people or small businesses with actual physical addresses that can be fully verified in the real world. In order to get your business featured, you would have to apply, and someone would physically have to visit you in order to verify your authenticity. Oh, and any website that uses AI in any form would simply be ineligible to appear on the search engine.

      Yes, this would result in a drastically reduced pool of potential sites, but what remains would be absolute gold.