another-circus

A ton of kids these days aren't that tech savvy. I work with high school kids and many have a real lack of understanding about how things work. A large number have no idea how to much with software outside of browser, believe that internet traffic travels through satellites to get between continents, and can't even debug simple printer jams.

Back when Netflix first started, and they were sending out DVDs instead of doing streaming, my stepdad, who is now in his mid-80s wanted to get his money worth. So, he started ripping the movies immediately and returning them the same day, ordering more as quickly as he could. When I went to visit he'd always have added more to his bookcases of DVDs. He recently setup a NAS and Plex and copied them all over. They, my parents, have a streaming service, but they live in the boonies so the connection isn't great, and having thousands of movies and shows ready to go is great for them.

Some old people know a thing or two.

I think it's really difficult to tell if they are dying or not. I don't think MAU or DAU gives the full picture as it doesn't tell us what people are using it for, what sort of new accounts are coming online (are they real people, bots, businesses or what?), and how active people actually are. Are people logging in for easy auth or are they spending more or less time actively browsing the site.

You're right that HN is not the right place to judge this. I will say, as someone who works with high school kids, almost none of them have seemed to use it over the last 4-5 years.

I have never been on TikTok or Instagram. I don't have an account on Reddit or Facebook and hardly visit them unless it's someone referring me to a post. If you run an adblocker you don't see ads 99% of the time. You can visit numerous news sites and other journals without seeing anything but the quality content. You can even view YouTube without seeing ads or clicking on garbage videos. It's not hard to avoid garbage on the net. No one is forcing you to participate in places where it's common.

You can avoid that content by not watching the video or visiting places where videos like that appear.