8 ms·

This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. Usually more often. Even in the hellscapes of Twitter or

This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. Usually more often. Even in the hellscapes of Twitter or Facebook, you'll find interesting writing, weird animations, or new illustrations. There's immense creativity released daily. Too much for one person to ever keep up with. Just because strip malls are plentiful, doesn't mean good architecture no longer exists. And I remember the old days. For every hand-crafted gem of a site, there were a 100 with little more than a grainy photo of Slipknot and an "under construction" animation.

accrual 5y ago
Smaller subreddits are a great counterexample as well. Many are teeming with user creations, be it art, short stories, personal projects, etc. Just about anything and everything can be found there, and much of it is people just doing their thing for no profit besides an integer counter on their post.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  Link us!
  - accrual 5y ago
    Here are a couple of user created content subreddits I like. They fall into the general overlapping categories of making and fixing things, and taking cool pictures of clouds, plants, and *nix desktops. :) If you prefer the new layout you can "s/old/www/g". https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CLOUDS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CLOUDS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electronics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electronics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/ https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/ https://old.reddit.com/r/painting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/painting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Pizza/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Pizza/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ramen/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ramen/ https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ https://old.reddit.com/r/succulents/ https://old.reddit.com/r/succulents/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/
    - zem 5y ago
      let me add https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/ https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/
      - cobertos 5y ago
        Wow, 16 year old me would've killed for this link in highschool. Thanks for this one!
    - patrickk 5y ago
      A few more /r/battlestations /r/buildapc /r/GameDeals /r/Rainmeter /r/diyaudio /r/fixit /r/TronScript /r/AutoHotkey /r/bookmarklets /r/homeassistant /r/nodered /r/Bogleheads /r/juststart /r/Optionswheel /r/qyldgang /r/thetagang /r/VegaGang /r/patientgamers /r/slavelabour /r/Anki
serf 5y ago
>This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. it's pretty undeniable that the web was more unique before the tooling and resources existed for laymen to easily spin up a site using an off-the-shelf solution, style-sheet, template, etc. The grainy photo of slipknot may have been the same one from site to site -- digital media was uncommon and was generally scavenged from band sites and similar -- but many of those sites had hand-written code to facilitate the photo. Handwritten code that was unique and different from site to site. Yeah, there is more artwork and toys on the internet now -- that's a function of the massive surge in popularity and accessibility and the world's populations finally getting to 'come online' -- but 'uniqueness'? That's way down ever since GeoCities and getting worse every day since. It's now trivial to go find 1000s of Hugo/Gatsby/Hexo/Jekyll that all use the same exact style sheets and templates, but with different data on each site. That's nice from an accessibility stand-point, but we lost a degree of uniqueness and creativity without a doubt.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I'm old enough that I had to hand-write all my web code when I started in the business, and I still do. Primarily because I never liked templates or wanted to learn how to tweak them - that's learning someone else's framework and being at their mercy. As it turns out, writing your own code is a lost skill and the companies and individuals who do need that service are willing to pay an arm and a leg for it. So I can charge $200/hr while someone building a template site might be making $15/hr. And my code isn't necessarily as flexible or future-proof. But it's built to do [insert specialized UI/data feature] that nothing on the open market does. I really miss the efforts of early self-built websites, experiments, online games - even the really bad ones. I also think that having to jump through hoops to publish content made people think harder about what they were putting out in the world. Making the process of publication brainless lowers the bar of entry to, well, brainless people.
  - MarblePillar 5y ago
    > As it turns out, writing your own code is a lost skill and the companies and individuals who do need that service are willing to pay an arm and a leg for it. Where do you find companies and individuals willing to pay $200/hr for basic, non-templated web code? (Or is it one of those things where they find you...)
zaptheimpaler 5y ago
It sort of both. There is probably more cool stuff out there today in absolute numbers, but less in relative terms as the businesses pushing clickbait and blogspam come in. The percentage of cool stuff decreases even as the amount increases, so it becomes harder to find even as it becomes more abundant.
emilsedgh 5y ago
It's just that the signal/noise ratio used to be several orders of magnitude higher.

accrual 5y ago

Smaller subreddits are a great counterexample as well. Many are teeming with user creations, be it art, short stories, personal projects, etc. Just about anything and everything can be found there, and much of it is people just doing their thing for no profit besides an integer counter on their post.

dougmwne 5y ago
Link us!
- accrual 5y ago
  Here are a couple of user created content subreddits I like. They fall into the general overlapping categories of making and fixing things, and taking cool pictures of clouds, plants, and *nix desktops. :) If you prefer the new layout you can "s/old/www/g". https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CLOUDS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CLOUDS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electronics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electronics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/ https://old.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/ https://old.reddit.com/r/painting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/painting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Pizza/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Pizza/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ramen/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ramen/ https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ https://old.reddit.com/r/succulents/ https://old.reddit.com/r/succulents/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/
  - zem 5y ago
    let me add https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/ https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/
    - cobertos 5y ago
      Wow, 16 year old me would've killed for this link in highschool. Thanks for this one!
  - patrickk 5y ago
    A few more /r/battlestations /r/buildapc /r/GameDeals /r/Rainmeter /r/diyaudio /r/fixit /r/TronScript /r/AutoHotkey /r/bookmarklets /r/homeassistant /r/nodered /r/Bogleheads /r/juststart /r/Optionswheel /r/qyldgang /r/thetagang /r/VegaGang /r/patientgamers /r/slavelabour /r/Anki

serf 5y ago

>This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. it's pretty undeniable that the web was more unique before the tooling and resources existed for laymen to easily spin up a site using an off-the-shelf solution, style-sheet, template, etc. The grainy photo of slipknot may have been the same one from site to site -- digital media was uncommon and was generally scavenged from band sites and similar -- but many of those sites had hand-written code to facilitate the photo. Handwritten code that was unique and different from site to site. Yeah, there is more artwork and toys on the internet now -- that's a function of the massive surge in popularity and accessibility and the world's populations finally getting to 'come online' -- but 'uniqueness'? That's way down ever since GeoCities and getting worse every day since. It's now trivial to go find 1000s of Hugo/Gatsby/Hexo/Jekyll that all use the same exact style sheets and templates, but with different data on each site. That's nice from an accessibility stand-point, but we lost a degree of uniqueness and creativity without a doubt.

noduerme 5y ago
I'm old enough that I had to hand-write all my web code when I started in the business, and I still do. Primarily because I never liked templates or wanted to learn how to tweak them - that's learning someone else's framework and being at their mercy. As it turns out, writing your own code is a lost skill and the companies and individuals who do need that service are willing to pay an arm and a leg for it. So I can charge $200/hr while someone building a template site might be making $15/hr. And my code isn't necessarily as flexible or future-proof. But it's built to do [insert specialized UI/data feature] that nothing on the open market does. I really miss the efforts of early self-built websites, experiments, online games - even the really bad ones. I also think that having to jump through hoops to publish content made people think harder about what they were putting out in the world. Making the process of publication brainless lowers the bar of entry to, well, brainless people.
- MarblePillar 5y ago
  > As it turns out, writing your own code is a lost skill and the companies and individuals who do need that service are willing to pay an arm and a leg for it. Where do you find companies and individuals willing to pay $200/hr for basic, non-templated web code? (Or is it one of those things where they find you...)

zaptheimpaler 5y ago

It sort of both. There is probably more cool stuff out there today in absolute numbers, but less in relative terms as the businesses pushing clickbait and blogspam come in. The percentage of cool stuff decreases even as the amount increases, so it becomes harder to find even as it becomes more abundant.

emilsedgh 5y ago

It's just that the signal/noise ratio used to be several orders of magnitude higher.