[jillesvangurp]

The only thing that changed is that the people that were there are now grumpy middle aged people complaining that things have changed around them. Not realizing that it's they that have changed the most.

For technology optimism, look at younger generations. You are not going to find it in older generations. It's not a technical problem; it's a problem with aging. Young people are still expressing themselves online. Mostly not using any of the tools used by us older people. And good for them.

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. I don't have a lot of patience for people of my own age these days. Not a lot of creativity there. Lovely people but just not very inspiring. Most of their great achievements are in the past. I try to keep some young people around me to keep me a bit more engaged. Much more fun. Young people haven't changed at all. I'm at risk of sliding into old age and being all grumpy about it. But I refuse to. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

It's not technology that's stopping people from expressing themselves but the fact that they no longer have the mental agility to make the most of what at the time were very primitive tools. If it was there (again) would you use it? Hint: it's still there and you are not using it like you used to! All the old tools still work. And there are some newer ones that work even better. The tools are there. But you aren't.

[graemep]

I would say that is young people have different, and IMO lower, expectations.

People of our age group expected internet technologies to be democratising and empowering. Instead they have become centralised and controlled.

PG is is right that Twitter's advantage was that it did not feel like it was owned by a private company. The problem is, that that feeling was entirely incorrect. Unlike open protocols things controlled by private companies are inevitably enshittified.

[photonthug]

> I would say that is young people have different, and IMO lower, expectations.

This is obviously true, despite young people and old people who want to argue against all reason that nothing of significance has changed. If you don’t want to be perceived as old/cranky there’s huge pressure to lower your own expectations, stop pointing out problems, to actively make excuses for problems and to shout down anyone else.

I’m not even sure what to point out as evidence here since it’s so ubiquitous, but for a simple example.. surfing the internet is a hilarious anachronistic metaphor since it implies a free and frictionless experience that takes you anywhere. We browse fewer sites owned by fewer companies, using way more effort and tactics to dodge all kinds of thirsty and user hostile bullshit, even before we discuss things like AI slop and misinformation. It’s not surfing as much as lurching horribly, like riding on a bike uphill with square wheels.

We also pay for more things that in the end we own less of. Sure you can still hack your phone to act like the unrestricted computing device that it actually is, you can spend a bunch of effort ripping the drm off the ebooks, audiobooks, and music that you “own”. But it’s a constant time and energy suck that you eventually get tired of revisiting. Despite or perhaps because of AI, even autocomplete on my phone is worse than it was 5 years ago (apparently it prefers “Horta” as the complete for “hier” instead of “hierarchy”, presumably because brand names have been weighted more than English? Good thing we’ve advanced beyond simple dictionaries, hurray for progress?)

Realistic techno optimism is kind of predicated on things gradually improving instead of on steady decline. Anyway, the decline wouldn’t be so irritating if we could at least agree to curb this whole “same as it ever was!” commentary.. it’s naive and not enlightened. We can’t begin to fix problems that we won’t acknowledge.

[graemep]

I know young people who acknowledge this, but they do not see changing it as a realistic aim. They may be right.

I think that like many other things, this reflects political and cultural expectations at large. The west has become centralising and centrally controlled. Unlike the Soviet Union that control is shared between the government and big business, but it is still far more centralised and regulated than the west was a few decades ago.

This also relates to things like privacy, policing and security, education (the Act the British government wants to pass at the moment is a good example of the state taking more control, both from individuals and centralising its own institutions), economic policy, building infrastruture...... pretty much everything.

[arkh]

> People of our age group expected internet technologies to be democratising and empowering.

*People of your age group who knew and had access to Internet

30 years ago, most people were not using internet. They did not expect anything from something they did not know anything about.

Nowadays internet is a daily tool for billions from all age, from most countries and from many economic levels. It has been democratized. It has empowered a lot of people. And I'm sure many would like it to help do more of it. I'd bet more than during your time.

[graemep]

> Nowadays internet is a daily tool for billions from all age

Which we expected

> It has been democratized.

Anything but. More people using it not democratising it. More people sharing control is democratising.

> It has empowered a lot of people

Not as much as it should have, not anywhere like as much.

[bryanrasmussen]

It has been democratized in one angle, that of the technical ability to use the internet being taught and disseminated wide enough that people can use it, it has been privatized in another angle meaning that while people can travel through the internet it is through private grounds they travel, and private tolls they must pay.

[camgunz]

> It has been democratized in one angle, that of the technical ability to use the internet being taught and disseminated wide enough that people can use it.

The platforms work really hard to make it seem like you're using them, but in truth they're using you.

[camgunz]

I was born in 83, and yeah this drives me nuts too. My cohort will be like, "I hate social media; it's done bad things to kids, society, and me personally, but I have accounts on all the major platforms, I spend at least 2 hours a day on them, I might even work at one or even aspire to be an influencer."

Good lord it's so annoying. We're in charge now! We're literally writing gushing posts about Bluesky when it's solved exactly zero of the problems Twitter had (I guess it won't automatically switch you back to algorithmic feed, but honestly probably just give it time to enshittify).

Maybe I'm making too much out of what is essentially a collective action problem, but it's kind of heartbreaking to watch my generation sleepwalking into this weird social media abyss. Just don't keep walking! Quit making the abyss deeper!