Idk if this is the right community for this conversation, but it’s been on my mind and I want to share it with someone.

In the 00’s every new thing we heard about the internet was exciting. There were new protocols, new ways to communicate, new ways to share files, new ways to find each other. Every time we heard anything new about the internet, it was always progress.

That lasted into the early teens and then things started changing. Things started stagnating. Now we’re well into the phase where every new piece of news we hear is negative. New legislations, new privacy intrusions, new restrictions, new technologies to lock content away and keep us from sharing, or seeing the content we were looking for. New ways to force ads.

At one point the Internet was my most favorite thing in the world. Now I don’t know if I even like it anymore. I certainly don’t look forward to hearing news about it. It’s sad, man. We’ve lost a lot. The mega corps took the internet from us, changed it from a million small sites that people created because they had big ideas, or were passionate about small ones, and turned it into a few enormous sites with no new ideas, no passion, just an insatiable desire for money.

We’re at the end of an era, and unlike the last 20 years of progress, I don’t think most of us will like what the next era brings.

    • trailing9
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      1 year ago

      Making money is not a goal on lemmy, so why should there be more rewards than entertainment?

      If you want to make money, you have to look elsewhere. Crypto was an idea, but as we know, not sustainable.

      If you don’t find something, build it. Think like Bill Gates: build a platform where everybody can earn something. Don’t keep everything for yourself.

      Edit: Don’t think like Bill Gates. Just consider the idea of not squeezing out all profits for yourself, which, ironically, I have first read as a quote of him.

      • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Think like Bill Gates:

        So you’re telling me I should get into eugenics and strive to blame all the world’s problems on the people outside the imperial core breeding too much?

      • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Think like Bill Gates: use monopoly power to drive all your competitors out of business then write your own antitrust settlement where you pinkie swear to be a good boy for five whole years.

        • trailing9
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          1 year ago

          The key part is that Bill Gates made the conscious decision to leave profits on the table for others. I haven’t heard that advice from anybody else.

          That said, there are many more evil things like breaking the platform promise and taking over app categories. But there is no need to copy those ideas.

          • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Bruh you just told people to think like a billionaire pedophile eugenics guy and you really need to address that before we talk about anything else.

            • trailing9
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              1 year ago

              Changed. Better?

              I forgot the pedophile allegations and haven’t heard about the eugenics. The critique is correct and that background information makes me feel bad for the phrasing.

              The phrasing was meant for the billionaire part, though. When a person is all about making money and that person stresses how important it is not to be greedy when building a platform, then that’s something to remember.

                • trailing9
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                  1 year ago

                  Not my favorite anything.

                  About that money on the table, that’s for building a platform. A vaccine is no platform. That’s why he took it.

                  It shows how calculating he is. It also shows how few compassion is needed to build a platform.

                  To add another hustle platitude: imagine what a person with compassion could build.

                  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    The entire point of this thread was someone dreading the kind of hustlegrindy monetize-everything bullshit that you came here to heap onto it.

                    A vaccine is no platform. That’s why he took it.

                    Skullduggery from your favorite pedophile billionaire is acceptable to you as long as it is skullduggery that plays out according to excerpts from your sacred book of profit.

                    It also shows how few compassion is needed to build a platform.

                    What compassion? Or is that the point: your favorite billionaire pedophile saint of profit didn’t need it to make you fawn over him and his sacred ways?

                    To add another hustle platitude: imagine what a person with compassion could build.

                    A person with compassion and means would demolish the entire corporate police surveillance state that your favorite pedophile billionaires have forced upon the rest of the world.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            there are many more evil things like breaking the platform promise and taking over app categories

            That’s so very much more evil than anything that happened at Little St. James during Bill Gates’ return visits, huh? epstein maxwell libertarian-alert

          • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            The idea that Bill Gates left money on the table for others with Microsoft isn’t just wrong, it’s so exactly the opposite of reality that it boggles the mind. Did he leave money on the table for other DOSes with windows 95? For other office suites with MSOffice? For Netscape with bundled IE?

            Where did you get such a comprehensively false idea from?

            • trailing9
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              1 year ago

              I read it in an interview years ago.

              The office suits and the browsers are indeed among the apps that were taken over. The money was made by all the other commercial apps, and games.

              I should say that I don’t support that abuse of power.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        So, again, more empty hustlegrind slogans.

        If you walked out of your bubble and pitched those at a homeless person, you’d be lucky if all you got was spit on.

        Think like Bill Gates

        Like a child predator and frequent flyer at Little St. James that used “philanthropy” to wreck the United States public school system and broker eugenics experiments in impoverished countries? The one that made sure covid vaccines remained locked down under patent? I refuse.

          • TheCaconym [any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            A homeless person is without the mental structure to build something lasting, or else they would not be homeless or would identify differently, e.g. as a traveler.

            You’re a truly disgusting ghoul

          • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            A homeless person is without the mental structure to build something lasting

            Please kindly go fuck yourself. Like seriously please go outside and walk into traffic, you worthless disgusting piece of shit.

            • trailing9
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              1 year ago

              Could you elaborate, please? You have introduced the clichee of a homeless person. Your point only works if that person has such a tough life that they don’t have the time or mental energy to spend on vague ideas.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Could you elaborate, please?

                Your Patrick Bateman LARP got updated to 2020s techbro jargon, up to and including passive-aggressive contempt for homeless people because they didn’t hustlegrind or produce new tech toys for you to play with. bateman-ontological

                You have introduced the clichee of a homeless person.

                What is your entire post history but the cliches of a sociopathic techbro that sees other living beings as sources of profit or obstacles against profit?

                Your point only works if that person has such a tough life that they don’t have the time or mental energy to spend on vague ideas.

                What the fuck are you even trying to say here? Are you that high on your own ayahuasca-laced farts?

                • trailing9
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                  1 year ago

                  You are projecting. You asked about profits and you introduced homeless people as the ones who cannot handle this debate.

                  Now you are derailing with more insults.

                  Let’s stay on topic. You want profits and I suggested that you should try to build a platform to make money.

                  Can you handle that thought?

                  • TheCaconym [any]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    He doesn’t want profits, quite obviously you do (and seem obsessed by it), you’re the only one doing the projecting here - along with posting pitiful platitudes that’d make a shitty linked-in life coach delete their post in shame

                    What he did is ask you, literally, what you had in mind for the 99.99% of people that don’t win the tech innovation lottery

                  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    You are projecting.

                    “NO U” would only apply if I was doing what you were doing. I was not.

                    Now you are derailing with more insults.

                    Your rails were going nowhere but through a circus. Of course I’m going to point and laugh at clowns.

                    Let’s stay on topic.

                    The topic of this fucking thread was, quote, “Internet developments have gone from exciting to dreadful.” And you brought your techbro hustlegrind clown circus. So you derailed the thread in this comment chain, clown. And now I’m pointing and laughing at the clown.

                    You want profits

                    Where did I make that request in this thread? Not everyone in the world is a Patrick Bateman LARPer like yourself.

                    and I suggested that you should try to build a platform to make money.

                    And I suggested you lay off on the techbro hustlegrind shit if you want me to stop laughing at the clown.

                    Can you handle that thought?

                    I’m laughing at the clown, so yes I’m handling it.

          • HornyOnMain@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            A homeless person is without the mental structure to build something lasting, or else they would not be homeless or would identify differently, e.g. as a traveler.

            Bill Gates stan to mask off fascist any% speedrun (8 hours, 3 minutes and 33 seconds)

            • trailing9
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              1 year ago

              Where is the fascism? Should I ignore the reasons for homelessness and pretend that it is a normal state of life? Have I missed the memo where people are voluntarily homeless?