• Wilco@lemm.ee
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    18 hours ago

    Could you imagine a world where word of mouth became the norm again? Your friends would tell you about websites, and those sites would never show on search results because crawlers get stuck.

    • oldfart@lemm.ee
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      11 hours ago

      That would be terrible, I have friends but they mostly send uninteresting stuff.

    • Zexks@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      No they wouldn’t. I’m guessing you’re not old enough to remember a time before search engines. The public web dies without crawling. Corporations will own it all you’ll never hear about anything other than amazon or Walmart dot com again.

      • Wilco@lemm.ee
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        16 hours ago

        Nope. That isn’t how it worked. You joined message boards that had lists of web links. There were still search engines, but they were pretty localized. Google was also amazing when their slogan was “don’t be evil” and they meant it.

        • zanyllama52@infosec.pub
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          15 hours ago

          I was there. People carried physical notepads with URLs, shared them on BBS’, or other forums. It was wild.

          • i_love_FFT@jlai.lu
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            15 hours ago

            There was also “circle banners” of websites that would link to each others… And then off course “stumble upon”…

              • Wilco@lemm.ee
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                12 hours ago

                I forgot web rings! Also the crazy all centered Geocities websites people made. The internet was an amazing place before the major corporations figured it out.

        • Zexks@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          No. Only very selective people joined message boards. The rest were on AOL, compact or not at all. You’re taking a very select group of.people and expecting the Facebook and iPad generations to be able to do that. Not going to happen. I also noticed some people below talking about things like geocities and other minor free hosting and publishing site that are all gone now. They’re not coming back.

          • Wilco@lemm.ee
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            3 hours ago

            Yep, those things were so rarely used … sure. You are forgetting that 99% of people knew nothing about computers when this stuff came out, but people made themselves learn. It’s like comparing Reddit and Twitter to a federated alternative.

            Also, something like geocities could easily make a comeback if the damn corporations would stop throwing dozens of pop-ups, banners, and sidescrolls on everything.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      There used to be 3 or 4 brands of, say, lawnmowers. Word of mouth told us what quality order them fell in. Everyone knew these things and there were only a few Ford Vs. Chevy sort of debates.

      Bought a corded leaf blower at the thrift today. 3 brands I recognized, same price, had no idea what to get. And if I had had the opportunity to ask friends or even research online, I’d probably have walked away more confused. For example; One was a Craftsman. “Before, after or in-between them going to shit?”

      Got off topic into real-world goods. Anyway, here’s my word-of-mouth for today: Free, online Photoshop. If I had money to blow, I’d drop the $5/mo. for the “premium” service just to encourage them. (No, you’re not missing a thing using it free.)

        • NotJohnSmith@feddit.uk
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          14 hours ago

          How do you know that’s a bot please? Is it specifically a hot advertising that online photos hop equivalent? Is it a real software or scam? The whole approach is intriguing to me

          • Angelusz@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Edit: I Will assume honesty in this instance. It’s because they’re advertising something in a very particular tone, to match what some Amerikaanse consider common language.

            Normal people don’t do that.