Aero There's no way a genuinely authentic platform of free speech can exist when there's money to be made.
Not even just that, "free speech" has been twisted so much over the past few years the places that claim they are "free speech" either literally just aren't and still censor or filled with not people I wanna be around. Once the internet used to be chill, you could be edgy and say the no no words and whatever (can we here? I don't often but we see how far the censorship went once a bit of it was allowed in, I'm against arbitrary blocks, what and how you're saying it is what actually matters not what words you use) but its like no one really meant it, it was all fun, now you can't say much no matter the context yet so many people do seem genuinely spiteful even over the slightest disagreements (probably product of algorithms), no creative cursing or slurs required to get it across, thats what this modern top down enforced toxic positivity gets you.
Ross_R I saw people giving away their freedoms for the minimal comfort. Downloading mp3? But then you will have to sort them, upload them on your phone manuallly... Who wants that when you can simply pay for Spotify subscription?
So what if their playlist will be curated by algorithm? Most of people do not even see the horror of it: when you are not the one who uses the algo, but the one that is being used by it.
I hated Spotify when I used it, I used it the old school way, just listening to the artists and albums I liked, and they constantly kept dissapearing from my "library" due to copyright, went back to collecting FLACs and CDs. I listen to less music now but its a lot more intentional and meaningful than playing everything to death as background noise on Spotify. They also kept breaking my adblock constantly which was the final straw.
Ross_R Since I live in Russia, probably the biggest shock for me was the fact that when Steam, Spotify and others banned my country, people still didn't move away from those serivices. They learned to circumvent the block.
Just get that: they spent extra effort to work around the block to keep giving Steam their money. The most popular reason is simple: Steam is comfortable library with all your games in one place. Me with a dozen of HDDs? I'm a freak.
Not the reliance on the centralized services but I think that's a good thing, people learning that the government is not their friend and they should learn how to get past roadblocks they put in place, of course this would also apply to corporations and centralized services and so on. In the west most people worship the government and big corporations who work together to oppress us without anyone even noticing and saying its for our convenience.
Ross_R Search for more niche forums like SheepishPatio itself. Browse through webrings, use things like Wiby and Marginalia every now and then. Found an interesting sire or blog? Don't walk by - leave a message, write an e-mail.
Pisses me off like 3 years ago I somehow went down a rabbit hole clicking through links, I think I started on some neocities that I don't remember how I found and for like 2 hours it was like what going on the internet for the first time was like, even better arguably with instant loads and knowing what im looking for, which sites seem actually genuine and then my private browser crashed, I wish I saved some of those sites.
Ross_R I run a mostly old school YouTube channel for 8 years, and the results are expectably mediocre.
Still, it's the way to go if you do not want to give up. Make your own channel. Write your own site, even if it will be in Neocities. Start your own blog, even if on Blogger.
Used to upload some stuff on YT years ago but I just rage quit one day as I'm still stuck with my 2010 mindset, getting copyright takedowns for game music that was fine before, while pranks and other garbage are propped up on the front page I got tired of it, you could say I let them win by leaving by choice. Sometimes I wanna stream again to just scream into the void. I don't really wanna bother running my own site, its a lot of work, my written content is more useful on other sites where people may actually find and use it.
Somnolence we as a collective here at SheepishPatio are getting a bit older.
I even got told IRL like twice I act like I'm 70, I've been thinking about it, this is what getting old feels like, I swear I'm not old but I'm starting to relate to and understand old people more now.
Ross_R The problem is, it is not just nostalgia. Situation is objectively getting worse
Ross_R But as a matter of fact, the more I learn about facts and recent history, the more my nostalgia gets replaced with anemoia. Personally I think it was objectively better before I even was born
This so much, nostalgia is a cope and meaningless, proven by the fact that some people will be nostalgic for anything including very objectively bad things.
I don't even have that much nostalgia honestly, I have some good memories but thats about it, they're not extensive, I have basically no nostalgia for things most others would, maybe because I realize that those things for me were bad back then so I'm not gonna remember them just because I'm "supposed to", I can acknowledge my life used to suck but the world used to be objectively, measurably, undeniably better, meanwhile my life is probably better than its ever been before but the wider world and nearly everything within is worse than it used to be 15+ years ago. I wish I was born like 10-20 years sooner (and in the US preferably) so I got to enjoy more of a less shitty world.
Ross_R Internet is not reliable. Link rot, lost media, attacks on sites like Wayback Machine, et cetera, et cetera.
I fear the day archive.org goes, there are lots of people, powerful people who would greatly benefit from its death.
Pedestrian Guys start scraping websites, seed torrents make your websites or contribute to something complains wont get us anywhere.
About to order another 24TB HDD, gotta save what remains of the internet before it actually goes down for good, hoarding been one of my bigger hobbies these past few years, I wish i started earlier and could've saved a lot more, kills me how much stuff I let slip by, as I've said only good thing about modern internet/technology is that now I can actually be my own datacenter for all the stuff I cared about in the past when it would've been unimaginable to store even a portion of it but it does also suck that we have all this hardware and nothing current to do with it.