As internet forums die off, finding community can be harder than ever

Re:As internet forums die off, finding community can be hard... by silvi9 on Thursday November 19, 2020 @05:56AM (#25148232)

It seems like more and more discussions are only available on the deep web, so they're not indexed by Google and ultimately irretrievable. What we'll be left with is ultimately a shallow surface web, filled with misinformation and the occasional non-anonymous post, but a rich, goldmine in the deep web that's only accessible to those that have access to it.

The internet is slowly becoming closed off, and it's haunting to think that it'll never be as open as it once was. To me, this is a dark chapter in the Internet's present and future that I'd love to see an end to.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:As internet forums die off, finding community can be hard... by betwixthewires on Thursday November 19, 2020 @04:47PM (#25154778)

When people say "deep web" what it means today is much different than what it used to mean. Nowadays it simply means you have to type the URL of a site into your browser yourself.

The internet is not becoming closed off so much as users are using centralized, proprietary aggregation sites for everything. To the average internet peruser, there are maybe 5 websites. Google is a far the biggest of those aggregators (IMO it no longer functions well as a search engine) and if your idea of "the deep web" is that it doesn't rank in google, sure. But the internet is far bigger than that, still to this day, and for those of us that eschew those big aggregators, the internet you speak of is a daily reality.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:As internet forums die off, finding community can be hard... by cblconfederate on Thursday November 19, 2020 @10:43AM (#25150619)

something similar must have happened to radio, going from pirates everywhere to today's top 40 autoplays

[ Parent | on HN ]