> what we have now is a paradise compared to what we had then

Here's how I recall it:

Back in the day, you'd search for subject {$foo} and you would find mostly websites written by some cranky bearded weirdo who is obsessed with {$foo}, who has devoted weeks of his time to personally collating his every thought about {$foo} into one ghastly-looking site.

Nowadays, you search for {$foo} and find mostly beautifully template-designed pages of text written by indifferent fiverr freelancers who had about 20 minutes to stuff in as many keywords into as many column inches wrapped around as many ad slots as possible before moving on to the next subject.

I know which one I prefer.

(I may exaggerate. But only slightly.)

> Nowadays, you search for {$foo} and find mostly beautifully template-designed pages of text written by indifferent fiverr freelancers who had about 20 minutes to stuff in as many keywords into as many column inches wrapped around as many ad slots as possible before moving on to the next subject.

Yeesh, does anyone else have this opinion?

I sure don't. It's never been more trivial to find good, enriching content.

How many of these posts are just HNers getting more crotchety in their old age? Sometimes it just seems like a pissing contest for who can be most cynical. ;)

> more crotchety in their old age

I will willingly cop to this. But seriously, genuinely yes, the internet is full of a lot more content-free clickbait than it used to be. Because clickbait didn't used to be a thing that existed.

Having worked for a company that helped a myriad of other companies write shitty clickbait content, I agree with the commenter. The majority of content on The web now is written by people who don’t really give a shit about the topic and have nothing new to say on it, the only reason it exists is to drive clicks, SEO.

It used to almost entirely be populated by people who actually cared.

I have to agree with you that I generally don't see those kinds of pages as well.

Sure, they exist, and I do stumble on them from time to time, but most of the time I will find what I'm looking for, often with a wealth of user comments as well.

Can you prove an old crotcheteer wrong?

Let's take a really simple example. I'd like to see information about "rocket engines." Just masses and masses of enthusiast information for/from a technical point of view. Think something like Atomic Rockets [1] but more technical and less sci fi. An example of the 'ethos' I'm talking about would be something analogous to Fredric Parker's videos about KIC 8462852 / Tabby's Star / 'that star with the really bizarre dimming characteristics' [2]. Just an informed, obsessive, educated enthusiast targeting the exact same. I'm certain such sites exist. In the days before 80% of Google's links went to the same 20% of sites, they were really easy to find.

Google is excellent at finding low grade mass media on the latest topics, but I think their ability to find meaningful information has been deteriorating. E.g. getting back to those video's on tabby's star - if I search google for the same, I find no less than 4 hits with aliens in the title and just about as many alluding to have found 'the' explanation. It's complete trash (though Fredric's videos do hit the second page!). Granted, it's closer than the hardcore porn I might have found on the first page searching in the late 90s, but it seems like we've replaced porn with clickbait. If that's my choice, I'd prefer tits.

[1] - http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHLjfagBDOw

Actually, it wasn't meant as a critique, as I like most people highly value the modern internet.

I will be putting in more internal hyperlinks as I have more pages on the website to link to. Most of the articles there are still in progress, and this one is a sort of introduction to the HN community (which is my main source of news and analysis these days).

Please link me to your ham radio site when you get it ready for us. I'm also building a list of these types of blogs/sites.

(- the author)

I don't think the author talks about hyperlinks. It's fine to have pages without them. What links do you miss?

> Some bigger websites at the time were like mazes with some of the words on each page hyperlinked to other pages on the site that were about each of those separate topics, and you had to open up multiple links from each page otherwise you'd lose them, and you wanted to read every word.

This was a nightmare before tabs were a thing.

why?

The combination of the instability of Windows 3.1/95, terrible window management, 14"/15" monitors and uncontrolled pop-up windows was dreadful.

Windows NT made the browser crashing your computer a little less common.

Linux wasn't any better - the only graphical browser then for Linux was Netscape, and and that was even less stable on Linux than on Windows.

Follow a link, lose your place and have to start over.

I don't get this. What's wrong with the back button plus visited link colors?

I feel like the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and the number of open tabs makes things more confusing.

Usually, the next page also has interesting links, and the tree quickly becomes painful to traverse.

You click an interesting link, read it, click the back button, then click the next unvisited link. Where's the pain and how would tabs make it less?

Because what actually happens is I click an interesting link, read it, find a couple interesting-looking links, click them, read the first, see another 3 interesting links (on the now 2 levels-deep nested page), click them, notice that one of them links to a category or tag that's relevant to what I'm looking at (which has, on most wikis, dozens of pages)...

In short, sufficiently high branching factor means that neither depth first nor breadth first search can keep up without a lot of memory.

EDIT: Note that, at over 100 tabs per browser session, I am probably an extreme edge case. :)

One notable example from the 90s that I was referring to with this statement was a site that had many, many pages about unusual science/mystery/gnosis/anarchism. I haven't been able to locate it.

(- the author)

I know the one you mean. It disappeared a while back, but maybe some of these will help: http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/realitycarnival.h... https://josephmatheny.com/ http://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index https://www.livereal.com/spiritual_arena/practical_experimen...

There is this one that sort of fits the bill: http://www.sacred-texts.com/

But that might not be the one you mean... I recall one with a black background... hmm.

/edit/ I also found this one: http://www.crystalinks.com/ ...I (probably badly) archived a copy of it around 2000/2001, back then many pages had dark graphical backgrounds. It seems that has changed.

There was also the Temple of the Screaming Electron, which has since disappeared. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOTSE

Was it ZetaTalk? Ah, the 90s internet, where kookery and legitimacy stood side by side.

you're right - the kookery and legitimacy is no longer side by side, it's now stacked and you scroll through it on social media ;)