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SEO is what ruined the web AFAIC. > Time to start some human-only darknets. I know very little about darknets. How could you ensure that they are human-only?

jbeninger 15d ago
Lose anonymity and bring back key-signing parties. Maybe you can't guarantee that everything is human-generated, but at least you know the chain of trust that leads to the human that signed off. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of creating a darknet that only works by removing anonymity.
- ShinyLeftPad 15d ago
  Aka altman's world coin. I'm sure this darknet infra and party beer will be sponsored by mysterious people who turn out to be LLM companies and investors.
- duskdozer 15d ago
  I think an invite system like lobste.rs could be enough. Prune bots at common ancestors
ShinyLeftPad 15d ago
The golden age of internet was during seo, what are you talking about?
- sodapopcan 15d ago
  You're right, but along the lines of what another user mentioned, my memories of "the golden age" had little to do with commerce and just visiting cool and interesting websites. I used Yahoo! right up until google became a thing, so SEO wasn't on my radar until the early '00s.
eddythompson80 15d ago
The only way to generate a human-only net is to figure out how to remove all economical incentives from there. The “golden age of the internet” a lot of people, including myself, are nostalgic for had very very little economical incentives. I missed usenet, but I remember being active on small forums in the late 90s and early 2000s that were almost entirely passion projects. I recall a huge controversy in one forum when the guy who was maintaining it asked if it’s ok if he puts a banner ad at the top because someone was offering him $200 to advertise another forum. Removing the economical incentives is very hard though. Even HN is gamed by many tech companies and projects. Reddit is obviously a lost cause. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I don’t think there is an alternative.
- sodapopcan 15d ago
  Ya, "how do we make money off this?" ruins everything, but it's inevitable. But yes, that is exactly what I liked about the internet back then: I was just browsing the crazy shit people would put online just because they thought it was cool. I'd still have to go to the store to buy stuff and see friends/people in person. I've started doing those things more again.

jbeninger 15d ago

Lose anonymity and bring back key-signing parties. Maybe you can't guarantee that everything is human-generated, but at least you know the chain of trust that leads to the human that signed off. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of creating a darknet that only works by removing anonymity.

ShinyLeftPad 15d ago
Aka altman's world coin. I'm sure this darknet infra and party beer will be sponsored by mysterious people who turn out to be LLM companies and investors.
duskdozer 15d ago
I think an invite system like lobste.rs could be enough. Prune bots at common ancestors

ShinyLeftPad 15d ago

The golden age of internet was during seo, what are you talking about?

sodapopcan 15d ago
You're right, but along the lines of what another user mentioned, my memories of "the golden age" had little to do with commerce and just visiting cool and interesting websites. I used Yahoo! right up until google became a thing, so SEO wasn't on my radar until the early '00s.

eddythompson80 15d ago

The only way to generate a human-only net is to figure out how to remove all economical incentives from there. The “golden age of the internet” a lot of people, including myself, are nostalgic for had very very little economical incentives. I missed usenet, but I remember being active on small forums in the late 90s and early 2000s that were almost entirely passion projects. I recall a huge controversy in one forum when the guy who was maintaining it asked if it’s ok if he puts a banner ad at the top because someone was offering him $200 to advertise another forum. Removing the economical incentives is very hard though. Even HN is gamed by many tech companies and projects. Reddit is obviously a lost cause. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I don’t think there is an alternative.

sodapopcan 15d ago
Ya, "how do we make money off this?" ruins everything, but it's inevitable. But yes, that is exactly what I liked about the internet back then: I was just browsing the crazy shit people would put online just because they thought it was cool. I'd still have to go to the store to buy stuff and see friends/people in person. I've started doing those things more again.