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by TheMonarchist 1693 days ago
> I seem to have collapsed down to checking 5 to 6 sites.

I check about 20 sites regularly even when I have other interesting things to do.

> Where would I even go to find other sites that might be of interest?

Search engines?

> Whatever happened to the idea of “exploring the Internet”?

It sounds like you would like to find lists of recommended sites that people used to have on their homepages. Most people don't maintain such lists anymore, because 1) nobody reads them 2) they are busy pushing updates and consuming those of other people. Most people find more interesting stuff than they have time to consume already. (Who even needs entertainment industry anymore?)

Also I don't frequent social media, unless HN counts.

Edit: Sometimes when I want anything to read, I search "is java dying" or "why c++". There has always been something new, albeit I do it only two or three times a year.

2 comments

I honestly do think link pages should make a comeback. Websites are really bad at linking to each other. It's like they are trying to trap their visitors or something and prevent them from leaving by having no exits, but no visitor likes to feel trapped like that.

It's fun to assemble link lists, it has a sort of scrapbooking quality to it, and as long as the links are of high quality, they can be very enjoyable to browse through as well. That's the benefits beyond the service they provide for the personal website ecosystem which is really struggling with serious discoverability issues.

I agree in a way, but for different reasons.

The Internet can host public debate where everyone can participate equally well in a way that was never before possible, whereas mainstream media is mostly a relic from a time when writing was ink on paper, and publishing was therefore expensive.

People could commend blogs and articles they think you should read (and publish their own too!). They should be able to do so without fear of losing friends or being kicked from the platform when they find something objectionable in them.

Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. -- Jesus the Christ

But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. -- James 3:8

> Search engines

Which search engines in 2021 give you real, interesting websites and not SEO gamed content pages that exist only to serve ads?

> Which search engines in 2021 give you real, interesting websites and not SEO gamed content pages that exist only to serve ads?

You could try https://searchmysite.net/ which only includes user-submitted and moderated websites, and tries to keep out spam by detecting pages with adverts and heavily downranking them in the results.

Shameless self-promotion: https://search.marginalia.nu/
Bubbling can be avoided with something like DuckDuckGo or Startpage, albeit SEO gamed content is still an issue.

Marginal search engines may be better at avoiding it, as optimizing for them wouldn't be that profitable, but I haven't tried any.

You could try checking out lower results, or search the SEO gamed content for hints that help you dig deeper.

Gemini's search engine