The Toilet Theory of the Internet: Google is serving an audience that wants quick and easy results. That may lead to disaster.

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 365 points –
The Toilet Theory of the Internet
theatlantic.com
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What have new generations been led into thinking that the internet is supposed to be? They dont even know what a directory is or what a file path is, because of design that dumbs things down...

It is important, because what people think the internet is and what they value will affect what it will evolve into.

E.g. wikipedia is reflects somehow my view of the internet in the 2000s (Encarta :D)...but for some people today the internet is just social media...or just videos?

Internet of the 90s and early 2000s were introduced as a library where people consulted text for information. There was an introduction (tutorials), a userbase that's educated and/or eager to learn, and most importantly, it was the wild west where companies didn't think much of except for just having a .com address. This is where our view of search engines come from - to consult with keywords and read.

This is no longer the case. It's no longer seen as a library, but a shopping mall where you have advertisements shoved down your throat and flashy stuff that grab your attention. For people who were born after smartphones and grew up without knowing the early stuff, the search engine is... well, do people know or even care about that?

That's the best way I've heard the current internet being described... One giant shopping mall with ads.

And it sucks.

E.g. wikipedia is reflects somehow my view of the internet in the 2000s (Encarta :D)…but for some people today the internet is just social media…or just videos?

BTW, does anybody know of an offline encyclopedia which works under Wine?

I liked those too.

The Internet for me was about finding texts about fandoms or anything interesting, roleplaying forums, chats and some browser games. Downloading MP3`s once in a while, downloading and printing Star Wars pics.

EDIT:

They dont even know what a directory is or what a file path is, because of design that dumbs things down…

A kiosk with services.

BTW, does anybody know of an offline encyclopedia which works under Wine?

You can download wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

edit: if you really meant you want to see if any old encyclopedias work under wine, I never tried :D

I know, I meant something interactive from that time, complete and consistent. Like Encarta.

I'm still consulting my venerable encyclopaedia britannica dvd until this day. It works great under wine and actually does not work under a current version of windows anymore.

It works great under wine

Which version is that?

EDIT: Never mind

2008 ultimate

Ah. I actually found the 2004 version and the script to run it on Linux, and it works except for world atlas