[nunez]

Internet user since 1996, so still a bit new to it. I don’t miss the old web that much (the old web was AOL for a lot of people, at least in the US). DEFINITELY don't miss 28.8k and 56k and having to hog up our family's one phone line overnight to download Netscape 7, only for it to be a steaming pile...

I definitely absolutely miss open instant messaging platforms. The days of XMPP and open clients. Trillian and Pidgin specifically.

I loved having a single app for all of my messages across all of the networks I talked to people on. Nowadays everyone is on FB Messenger, Instagram DMs, iMessage, WhatsApp and Google Chat. All of them have separate apps; all of them are loss leaders; all of them are closed.

(I tried Beeper. Loved the idea but didn’t invest time in it since it was always two lawsuits away from me getting “An update on Beeper” email.)

I guess I also miss content existing for content’s sake. Early YouTube, Quora, Reddit, etc. People helping other people...well, usually, anyway. Nowadays everything is growth-maxxed. It's all about engagement. Text-only websites would have never been born in this iteration of the Internet, and that's sad.

[dzhiurgis]

Youtube added Ask AI where it gives you pretty good summary with timestamps. Absolute timesaver to drill down to essence.

They should just summarise and timestamp every video for everyone, but it would tank engagement and ad revenue.