So after a long hiatus, I've decided to log back on to my neocities account and write some stuff.
This is meditation 1, and the topic? The old internet.
I've been thinking a lot about the internet of old. For some reason, I'm drawn to it. I'm drawn to the primitive websites, the chatrooms and just the overall feel of it. I guess this plays into my interest in old technology, and my love for tech in general.
I was born when all this was sort of dying out. By the time I had discovered and started to use the internet, the era of geocities, angelfire and AOL had , well died. I was and am a part of the "flash" generation of internet users, who grew up on miniclip and flash games. Adobe flash was HUGE back then. And now? Well, the mobile era happened. Facebook, Instagram and other forms of social media are sort of the new Geocities and Angelfire, only on a scale much, much larger. The web, which was formerly only accessible through clunky desktops and laptops that could break your back, is now everywhere. Primitive 56k dialup has now given way to 100mb/s wifi, with 1gb fiber avaliable in east asian countries.
And yet people claim that the heart and soul of the internet has been sucked out of it, only to be replaced by what is essentially, a virtual times square. A huge fucking billboard. Many people think that the era of the personal webpage and free self expression is dead, and that the corporations, that brought the internet to the wider audience is to blame.
Personally, I think that the web needs to become decentralised. As Tim Berners Lee, creator of the world wide web said, infomation is now stored in huge silos (basically corporations) and that we need to bring the power back to the users. I'm all for that. I think that this will bring back the age of free expression so beloved by many internet users.
That's all! Have a good one
jow 15.04.17