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Is this what the internet felt like?
(lemmy.world)
I've been exploring the fediverse and subbing and posting all over the damn place. Realizing lemmy can federate with kbin blew my mind. Not to mention the possibility of turning my old laptop into a personal server to host my own instance. Is this what it felt like to discover how the internet worked in the 90s?
Yes, really. I was fortunate enough to be able to access the internet during the 90s. Was exposed to Geocities, webrings, and IRC mainly (the heyday of BBSes were juuust before I had access). Before Google, it was a real magical time when you never knew what lay in store as you surfed the information superhighway's hyperlinks. The "Old Internet" ruled.
In my opinion, the Fediverse is both like that, and unlike that. The idea of federation is really close to the unsiloed feel of the before times, yet we know much more about connectivity now than ever before. There's definitely magic in having something for the first time which you cannot 100% replicate even with something innovative.
But I have to admit the Fediverse does have that Brave New World feel (the concept, not the novel).
I know, that feeling of everything being new and unexplored.
Fediverse isn't quite there, but it has that spark of something different, for now.
The early internet really was special. I remember us kids at school would swap porn site names like they were guarded secrets
And runescape ruled