Funny story about 20 years ago I was at some party for I think EFF or PGP in sf, I had no idea what stumbleupon was and I met the ceo, it was already wildly successful and he described what it was to me and I was like "oh interesting idea, have you launched it yet" and he gave me the most confused look ... still remember it.
I find it honestly wild that so many have been inspired to recreate web discovery platforms in the vein of StumbleUpon at its peak, but not one seems to have really stuck or set a new standard for web discovery. The web is also a much bigger place than it was in 2009, there's so much more to discover, but it's so much harder to sift through what isn't worth paying attention to. I wonder if this speaks more culturally to how we consume new media.
> it's so much harder to sift through what isn't worth paying attention to. I wonder if this speaks more culturally to how we consume
I think it’s culturally how lots of people treat many things in their lives.
People always want the best X, whether it’s a place to eat, or hike, or vacation, or get a selfie. It leads to pathological situations where the neat little backstreet spots become overrun, popular hikes get trashed, and people sit around mulling which restaurant to go to for so long that they go way too late or just give up.
People are afraid of a diversity of experience. I understand that time is limited and the desire to not waste it. But, many times the experience is what you make of it, and there’s some good to find most places, not just those with 4.98+ stars.
> not one seems to have really stuck or set a new standard for web discovery
It's because most content worth seeing these days is behind a walled garden: Twitter, reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and even news articles these days are often paywalled. It's just a fundamentally different internet than it was in 2009. The corporations have definitively won.
One reason I personally like AI is that it at least puts the end-user on the same level (at least automation-, scraping-, and compute-wise) as big companies.
"worth seeing" is subjective, but I can assure you that there are websites way cooler than any Twitter post or TikTok video. People just don't care about regular websites anymore, that's the problem.
Tried going through some random stuff on jumpstick, got like three 404s in a row, and I know Neocities, but it's just kind of meme-y, not really that interesting to scroll through.
There's some genuinely awesome stuff out there, but it's (paradoxically) much rarer imo than it was a decade ago. HN and Twitter is a place where it occasionally bubbles up.
Funny story about 20 years ago I was at some party for I think EFF or PGP in sf, I had no idea what stumbleupon was and I met the ceo, it was already wildly successful and he described what it was to me and I was like "oh interesting idea, have you launched it yet" and he gave me the most confused look ... still remember it.
boom, jan 2007: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/01/effs-sweet-16-party-su...
Apparently there's a mitch kapoor connection between the two
I find it honestly wild that so many have been inspired to recreate web discovery platforms in the vein of StumbleUpon at its peak, but not one seems to have really stuck or set a new standard for web discovery. The web is also a much bigger place than it was in 2009, there's so much more to discover, but it's so much harder to sift through what isn't worth paying attention to. I wonder if this speaks more culturally to how we consume new media.
> it's so much harder to sift through what isn't worth paying attention to. I wonder if this speaks more culturally to how we consume
I think it’s culturally how lots of people treat many things in their lives.
People always want the best X, whether it’s a place to eat, or hike, or vacation, or get a selfie. It leads to pathological situations where the neat little backstreet spots become overrun, popular hikes get trashed, and people sit around mulling which restaurant to go to for so long that they go way too late or just give up.
People are afraid of a diversity of experience. I understand that time is limited and the desire to not waste it. But, many times the experience is what you make of it, and there’s some good to find most places, not just those with 4.98+ stars.
> not one seems to have really stuck or set a new standard for web discovery
It's because most content worth seeing these days is behind a walled garden: Twitter, reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and even news articles these days are often paywalled. It's just a fundamentally different internet than it was in 2009. The corporations have definitively won.
One reason I personally like AI is that it at least puts the end-user on the same level (at least automation-, scraping-, and compute-wise) as big companies.
"worth seeing" is subjective, but I can assure you that there are websites way cooler than any Twitter post or TikTok video. People just don't care about regular websites anymore, that's the problem.
Some places to discover those cool websites:
- https://cloudhiker.net
- https://wiby.org
- https://urlroulette.net
- https://jumpstick.app
- https://neocities.org
- https://viralwalk.com
Tried going through some random stuff on jumpstick, got like three 404s in a row, and I know Neocities, but it's just kind of meme-y, not really that interesting to scroll through.
There's some genuinely awesome stuff out there, but it's (paradoxically) much rarer imo than it was a decade ago. HN and Twitter is a place where it occasionally bubbles up.
Content Security Policy broke the use case. Although it would work well as a mobile app.
I miss it so.