[saltcured]

From the context, I assume it is a pun on hinterland as borrowed into English. Here, it is mostly synonymous with backwoods. The hinterland may sound more literary than folksy, or may emphasize an unexplored or less navigable zone rather than merely natural or undeveloped.

I wonder what the original blogger really meant by it. The discussion here seems to be focusing on either an axis of academic vs commercial or high culture vs pop culture, or maybe conflating the two. This isn't really about the level of development nor navigability but some other more abstract quality or purpose.

The developed land could hold a grand cathedral, a brutalist housing block, or a luxurious department store. The hinterland could have a frontier mission, a rustic cabin, or a trading post.

[r113500]

danny's meaning didn't have this romantic component. it was specifically "bad internet as experienced by non-technologically sophisticated users in the early 2000s", as opposed to the "wild internet". the example that he gives is something like spamassassin with naive bayesian filter, which meant that power users at that point in time "won" against spam, while naive users were still getting tons of spam in their inboxes. I personally always thought that it's play on "hinder net".