Is the big-I-Internet becoming "the dark web"? - Hear me out on this one.

[NoReturn]

I don't literally mean it's the dark web as we know it, but after talking to a zoomer over the weekend I've learned a lot more about how they interact with it and it's a bit disturbing.
I already knew that a lot of people are app-first users. That's why you hear shit like "Kiwifarms is too confusing" from people who are only used to things like Twitter and TikTok when they come here; they're used to having content spoon-fed to them by an algorithm.
The thing is, I didn't know that a lot of these people don't even use browsers on a regular basis. I thought they'd at least have to look things up for school and stuff.
In the same way as you or I might need to actually boot up Tor to use Onion sites, they see using a browser as an extra step. They are not so stupid as to not know that their apps use the internet, but going off the rails is something they have no real reason to do, so they have no motivation to explore.

 

[DumbDude43]

i want to go back in time and murder everybody at apple corporation so the iphone is never made

 

[Twinkletard]

I don't know about you, but I prefer anyone too stupid to use anything outside of Twitter and Tik Tok to not be able to use the Farms. We already got enough weirdos around here.

 

[Local Fed]

Yeah, kind of. Speaking of app-first users, I've really noticed a lot people who've been freaking out over Musk buying Twitter referring to the site as "an app." Instead of saying something like "I hate this site" they'll say "I hate this app" as a reply to something that they see and don't like; just a little thing that I've noticed which gives a bit of insight in my opinion to how people are viewing and interacting with the internet in general.

It's not entirely new that people get confused by using sites like this or technology in general. I've always found that a lot of people are just too lazy to learn about things on the internet, and things as a whole. The bar has been set incredibly low for what a lot of people consider one to be a "tech wizard." People often like to act like it's just boomers who are guilty of this or something, but plenty of young people simply won't take the five seconds to figure something out even if it could be found with a very simple Google search. You even see it sometimes with people who take the time to sign up here and can't figure out (or are just too lazy to take the few seconds to look) how to post a picture as a thumbnail or embed a Youtube video despite there being easily viewable options to do so that are in plain sight every time you post.

If you really want to feel immense disappointment, broach the topic of torrents/torrent clients lmao. They could be 15 or 65, most people will look at you like you're speaking Xhosa to them or something... that's if they don't immediately say "I don't want to get a million viruses!"

 

[Hepativore]

I don't know about you, but I prefer anyone too stupid to use anything outside of Twitter and Tik Tok to not be able to use the Farms. We already got enough weirdos around here.

That is indeed a plus for this place, but poor for the internet as a whole. When 90% of the internet consists of social media platforms or corporate-prioritized search results for people who only use Google as their search engine, any dissent outside of what these media platforms or promoted sites feature will be dead and buried, leaving non-normie ideas and opinions to languish in isolation.

Then places like the Farms will disappear without anybody noticing or caring as they will be too engrossed in their Twitter feeds to notice that the tech overlords decided to shut down what remained of internet free speech.

 

[Dialtone]

The amount of people that don't know how to block ads on websites like Youtube VIA A BUILT IN CHROME EXTENSION infuriates me. Then when I try to explain it to them "ah that's too much work"

ANGER

 

[rel=alternate]

I am not sure that this is completely true.

I think that the zoomer demographic you are referring to is also not a consumer yet, thus why they don't really need to use the web. They just want a constant stream of entertainment, and entertainment is not where the real money or value is when it comes to search.

I can't say I have seen a massive drop off in the younger demographics (18-24) over the past 5 years.

If anything, these shitty platforms are just a new way to drive traffic, create new points to collect data from and remarket to.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

after talking to a zoomer

I think I see where you made your first mistake.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

The amount of people that don't know how to block ads on websites like Youtube VIA A BUILT IN CHROME EXTENSION infuriates me. Then when I try to explain it to them "ah that's too much work"

ANGER

Opera can do it on phones. From get go. Just a switch. No extra actions needed

 

[Matt Damon]

The amount of people that don't know how to block ads on websites like Youtube VIA A BUILT IN CHROME EXTENSION infuriates me. Then when I try to explain it to them "ah that's too much work"

ANGER

"I'm willing to waste 20 seconds per YouTube video watched in perpetuity to save the 60 seconds it would take to install Ublock."

I have to believe they just don't understand the choice they're making. No sane, informed person would accept that tradeoff. Even the most pathetic sperg values his time more than that.

 

[NoReturn]

I am not sure that this is completely true.

I think that the zoomer demographic you are referring to is also not a consumer yet, thus why they don't really need to use the web. They just want a constant stream of entertainment, and entertainment is not where the real money or value is when it comes to search.

This guy was in his early 20s, they shop using apps like Amazon and Temu.

"I'm willing to waste 20 seconds per YouTube video watched in perpetuity to save the 60 seconds it would take to install Ublock."

I have to believe they just don't understand the choice they're making. No sane, informed person would accept that tradeoff. Even the most pathetic sperg values his time more than that.

It's gotta be cope, right? Like the real reason is that they don't feel technically savvy enough to do it and they're afraid of breaking something?

 

[Hepativore]

The amount of people that don't know how to block ads on websites like Youtube VIA A BUILT IN CHROME EXTENSION infuriates me. Then when I try to explain it to them "ah that's too much work"

ANGER

Opera can do it on phones. From get go. Just a switch. No extra actions needed

Actually, I am amazed that so many people do not know about the existence of Invidious as it has a nicer player than YouTube, ads are blocked as it uses different APIs, and it can play audio only, as well as in the background on mobile and most instances let you download the video or just the audio directly from the video page...and it also bypasses age or region blocks.

Plus, why do not more Android mobilefags use the NewPipe app to watch videos? It does everything YouTube Vanced used to do but better, as well as faster loading, background play, audio-only and downloading options, and no ads by default as well as no age or region blocks.

 

[Epic Fail Man]

Blame it on 3rd worlders and women. The internet became shit when they started getting addicted to it as well.

 

[Matt Damon]

Plus, why do not more Android mobilefags use the NewPipe app to watch videos? It does everything YouTube Vanced used to do but better, as well as faster loading, background play, audio-only and downloading options, and no ads by default as well as no age or region blocks.

The only real complaint I have with Newpipe is that it doesn't handle live streams (or their replays) properly.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Actually, I am amazed that so many people do not know about the existence of Invidious as it has a nicer player than YouTube, ads are blocked as it uses different APIs, and it can play audio only, as well as in the background on mobile and most instances let you download the video or just the audio directly from the video page...and it also bypasses age or region blocks

If opera will shit the bed and bow down to ad companies, I will use it. It does it's job and it do it properly

 

[Hepativore]

The only real complaint I have with Newpipe is that it doesn't handle live streams (or their replays) properly.

The only quibble I have is that you cannot organize your NewPipe search results by the date they have been uploaded.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

It's also becoming like the dark web in that search engines are starting to become more and more useless for navigating it.

I don't know, maybe this whole shift is fine, maybe it'll become a situation where all the sheeple will go off and consume their pre-built algorithmically centered mush and it'll leave a demographic of people who are capable of exercising basic agency to communicate and share information.

Sure, idk if it'll be fine in a general societal sense, I'm pretty pessimistic when it comes to the level of neurological damage that endless concentrated, algorithmically-driven internet consumption presents especially to developing minds, but that's a separate issue.

It's gotta be cope, right? Like the real reason is that they don't feel technically savvy enough to do it and they're afraid of breaking something?

Yeah, it's almost definitely classic learned helplessness.

Pictured above: A zoomer watching the 7th midroll ad in a 12 minute e-drama video.

 

[OutInTheRain]

I think we are in or at the end of a consolidation phase of the internet. The App era is the result, where a lot of people are driven to, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit and Amazon through the closed garden of a smartphone. It has the benefit of ease of use, which makes it very normie friendly. However the end of the consolidation era, leads to stagnation, which then leads to collapse. That is the healthy lifecycle of a company, and industry. Where honest competition fuels innovation, however we are in an era of anything but.

Twitter and Facebook are probably the most vulnerable to collapse at this time, because one is filled with Boomer Uncles screaming about Chemtrails and Trump, while the other is Boomer Aunt's screaming about White Supremacy and Trump. Places with user generated content have to be fun places to be, no one wants to get hit with politics and heavy handed moralizing. Reddit unfortunately seems to have cornered the market in retards, and will only die when the money dries up, sadly. Amazon and Youtube are probably going to be fine for the time being, one provides an actual service, the other is still a big enough tent to hold mass audiences. TikTok...I don't get that app at all, I assume it gives a quick dopamine hit of something to watch, so you will never be bored.

A lot of these services do have competitors that have been cropping up over the last few years, but they have all been coming from a dissident space, made up of those who have been banned for wrong-think, or because they upset some corporate overlord. They lack the outside of politics, topics to keep people coming back, over and over, so they don't develop that big tent audience that most of the above social media apps used to have. But I do think some of them, maybe able to keep a niche audience of a few thousand, to exist outside of the walled garden of the app community. Like Kiwifarms for example, there is enough here, for it to develop a community of autists, who gossip about e-celebs and call each other retards.

A person has to seek out places like Kiwifarms. They become places that have to build up a reputation, in order to attract traffic, because, no one wants to have a banner ad for Kiwifarms on their site. In a way it's how the indie music scene worked in the 80's and 90's. A person has to go from the realization that everything they are reading is stupid, and the people they interact with on the mainstream sites are retards. To going to a competing site because they wanna bitch about videogames, without every response being some shitty pun.

As for Zoomers, they grew up in that smart phone, walled garden. They had the ease of just hitting the app, and the app does everything and never developed the skills that using a browser gives one. It's like how everyone, or nearly everyone drives, but how many people can change a sparkplug? It's a mix of ease and convenience, that kind of leads us here. For example I recently had to explain to 20-year old minion how to install programs on his computer, as he had never done it outside of Steam. When I asked him how he installed Steam, he told me his Dad did for it him. I felt a small piece of me die in that moment, and I really hope he was just a special kind of retard rather than the norm.

 

[HahaYes]

As for Zoomers, they grew up in that smart phone, walled garden. They had the ease of just hitting the app, and the app does everything and never developed the skills that using a browser gives one.

You see the same thing working in IT. A lot of younger people come in who have absolutely zero clue how to operate anything outside of chromeOS or a touch screen oriented device such an as iPad/surface, something that has it all in a pre-installed app which just needs you to spit your credentials in for it to work. They have no idea how to navigate file explorer, installing executables on their own is impossible and god help you if your organisation uses a portal with approvals to install software on their corporate device, because they can't figure that out either and end up sperging out at the service desk lol.

 

[S.C.U.D.]

There's a book that came out 20 years ago called Feed (formerly Fuck). In it, the Feed is a device implanted in your brain that connects you to the Internet 24/7 and it tracks your every waking moment, literally watching you buy things so it can better advertise to you, it's largely a commentary on late 20th-century consumer culture but it feels more accurate now than it was even then. It was very prescient of the modern world of algorithms. I read it shortly after it came out and it's always stuck with me, especially in the last few years as this shit has accelerated. I don't remember if the book was any good or not, but the concept of the Feed has always stuck with me and now I think about that book an awful lot.