I believe that the Internet has changed a lot in the recent times. Many websites have been closed and new websites are live in the Internet. Internet used to be a very different thing around 20 years ago. So, how much has Internet changed?
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How much has the internet changed in the recent years?
- Thread starter Dinoking
- Start date
it's changed SO much, even just in the last few years. Like, where do I even start?
The biggest thing for me is how AI suddenly became everywhere. A couple years ago, AI was mostly just a sci-fi thing or something tech nerds talked about. Social media got way more chaotic too. Twitter/X went through that whole Elon drama, TikTok basically took over (especially with younger people), and everyone's worried about getting banned or shadowbanned for random stuff. The whole vibe feels more tense and political than it used to be.
Privacy stuff ramped up big time - you can't go anywhere without cookie popups, data breach notifications, and apps asking for permission for everything. Apple and Google started that whole privacy war which is good for us but makes everything more complicated.
The misinformation problem got way worse too. Deepfakes, AI-generated content, bots everywhere. It's honestly hard to tell what's real anymore sometimes.
Oh, and everything got more expensive! Streaming services all raised their prices, subscription everything, even basic web hosting costs more now. It feels like the internet went from this fun, open place to something way more corporate and stressful. Maybe I'm just getting old and nostalgic though
The biggest thing for me is how AI suddenly became everywhere. A couple years ago, AI was mostly just a sci-fi thing or something tech nerds talked about. Social media got way more chaotic too. Twitter/X went through that whole Elon drama, TikTok basically took over (especially with younger people), and everyone's worried about getting banned or shadowbanned for random stuff. The whole vibe feels more tense and political than it used to be.
Privacy stuff ramped up big time - you can't go anywhere without cookie popups, data breach notifications, and apps asking for permission for everything. Apple and Google started that whole privacy war which is good for us but makes everything more complicated.
The misinformation problem got way worse too. Deepfakes, AI-generated content, bots everywhere. It's honestly hard to tell what's real anymore sometimes.
Oh, and everything got more expensive! Streaming services all raised their prices, subscription everything, even basic web hosting costs more now. It feels like the internet went from this fun, open place to something way more corporate and stressful. Maybe I'm just getting old and nostalgic though
The internet has changed in many ways. Various search engines have changed their algorithms. They have also changed their policies when it comes to the kind of content being published on various blogs and websites. Their policies related to keywords have also changed a lot. Now many people are moving to YouTube and creating their channels. This has also made YouTube quite popular in the recent decades.
The internet has changed faster than we can catch our breath. Last year alone, the changes I noticed were so obvious. Though it was scary, but it’s exciting at the same time. Now, just one viral post can change a lot of things overnight, good or bad. Back then the internet was slow, now everything is instant
A lot of consolidation and corporate takeover of the internet. Fewer and fewer users are going onto the internet and searching for new sites and looking for small communities, versus just joining the social media that their friends are on. I'd be curious to see stats on how many people don't even consider it the internet and merely just a Facebook app or Twitter app where they live online. There is also the backend consolidation of the internet. In the 90s, if half the internet went offline, people would be thinking the world was ending. Today, it is a mere "I guess Amazon is down today."
The other thing is privacy, and a massively worrying trend of a desensitization to giving away your information and companies misusing that information. I remember the days when users would be up in arms if they had to share their email address. Now, people let sites skim all the data on their browser and then are unaffected when that same company loses their unencrypted SSN, credit cards, etc., into the open web. I am much less concerned about the amount of information than I am looking at the lack of user engagement when that information is misused.
The other thing is privacy, and a massively worrying trend of a desensitization to giving away your information and companies misusing that information. I remember the days when users would be up in arms if they had to share their email address. Now, people let sites skim all the data on their browser and then are unaffected when that same company loses their unencrypted SSN, credit cards, etc., into the open web. I am much less concerned about the amount of information than I am looking at the lack of user engagement when that information is misused.
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