It’s a store where there’s a pickpocket in every aisle, all the products are cheap fakes and the registers are programmed to cheat.
It used to be a library
Submitted 2 weeks ago by cm0002@lemdro.id to memes@sopuli.xyz
https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/e9429e72-41b5-4884-90d7-23ef7e104005.png
Comments
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But line goes up. It goes up!
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I read this in Tim Robinson’s voice for some reason.
OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The social contract was that everyone was a custodian of that library. That’s how we got Wikipedia.
Social media and monetization broke that social contract. Another building was constructed beside the library. People were checking out books from the library and selling them at the market.
Now with LLMs, those books are being burnt. There’s a trillion dollar giga-sized building next to the derelict library and the fast becoming defunct market that is industrial scale mass producing pulpy books.
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Wikipedia still exists, in fact it’s expanding every day…
alekwithak@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And the fascists have been going after it wholesale.
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
Here’s what N. M. Klein wrote about the internet all the way back in 1998, likening it to a labyrinth.
I don’t say this often, but this text has completely changed the course of my life.
Some choice quotes:1998 is still a dangerously nascent stage in the Internet, while a trillion dollar nest of dragons sets up shop.
Inside, you have seemingly infinite choice, but practically no way out. In fact, you prefer being trapped a bit. That gives the story some bite. Why enter Happy Imprisonment? Because you slowly catch your breath. You expect to outwit the program.
Pockets of confusion in the system let the player imagine that there are ways to subvert it. It’s a Faustian sim-bargain. The player submits to the labyrinth, then pretends to cheat.
Simulating revolt is more fun, and a better investment. […] But consider what sim-revolt implies as a broader model for public life? We pretend that the labyrinth of the Web makes us free of the global corporate program that builds and owns it. We feel above the swamp of idiotic web sites. We know how to surf. The demon apparatus can’t get us. We can dig out of anything. We’re never trapped.
Recently, there is talk of voting on the Web. Is a cross between ergonomic fascism and the shopping mall the best frame of mind for making political decisions? Let us not mystify information delivery too much. Despite the services, it is not fundamentally democratic, only the freedom to chat. The server and the search engine are a feudal plantation. They decide for us, when to plant, when to hunt.
The labyrinth is a mood of passivity. It’s like saying you’re never really trapped in bad traffic. Just because we can subvert the Web by saying nasty things or engaging in cyber-sex in the margins, or downloading information cheaply, does not mean that we are subverting any core reality.RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
He was wrong about voting.
It would make voting easy and accessible.
They don’t want that at all.
Sylence@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Everything I’ve seen about internet voting has shown me that making it even little bit secure and fair is basically impossible. Would be interested in some information to the contrary!
Bongles@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
smeenz@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
That’s because it’s bathed in light.
HurricaneLiz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Lmao 😂
sundray@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
I Walk the corner to the rubble,
That used to be a library, line up to the mind cemetery now,RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ugh. I get it, but I dislike poetry that avoids grammar to make something seem deeper than it is.
I walk to the corner
To the rubble
That used to be a library.
Line up
To the mind cemetary now.
Valorie12@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Right but that doesn’t really fit with the song
DupaCycki@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Capitalism is a machine that turns all freely accessible public goods into paid products and services.
But hey, look at the GDP rising. Don’t you feel richer?
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
More like “mob-controlled gambling den” than store.
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The pioneering days of the internet are over. We left the Golden Age of the web and are now in the Mafia-controlled phase as you pointed out. If history repeats itself it’ll be decades before anything gets better.
qaz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I should visit the local library again
OnyxRex@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
It’s not just the library. I’ve been doing a lot of the stuff I did two decades ago as a teenager. Thrift stores, Half-priced books, the library, the mall. As a chronically online person, I can’t explain the exact feeling of it. It’s somehow both less and more. The internet was this amazing grand archive and forum. It was everything, but now most of everything has been stolen and sold off.
Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
You should before the tech bros turn into a store or subscription service along with everything else.
SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
This is exactly how I feel about the internet: it should’ve been a reincarnation of the Library of Alexandria, not Wall Street.
DrSoap@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Once its no longer financially viable, they’ll let go. Right now its exciting and accessible. A lot of new people are online shopping when they never have before. I think eventually those people will get sick of it. The excitement of getting packages and filling your house with stuff you don’t need will wane.
maybemaybehopefully@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I don’t think they will let it go. At the end of the day, people still need to buy stuff, and if they can do it from a phone, that saves them a trip to whichever physical store they would have gone to. Also, sometimes people need highly specific things that they can’t get at nearby stores, or maybe there is a nearby store with the thing but they have to search to find out about it.
If they let it go, it’ll probably be due to an economic crisis in which shipping is too expensive and no one can afford to buy anything other than groceries anyway. It won’t be because people stopped wanting to buy stuff. And at that point, we’ll be screwed because no one will be able to afford to maintain the internet either.
I think if we’re going to get the Library of Alexandria back, we’re going to need to build dedicated corporation-free online spaces where people can share information, and we’ll need to figure out a viable funding model for that. Like, well, libraries.
AccoSpoot1@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They don’t want you to know this but the stores used to be libraries too, and then some fuckhead didn’t like the poors being on his commons and said “yes, private ownership is the best way to manage distribution of these communal resources!”
SystemDisc@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I taught myself most of what I know now from reading Wikipedia for hours and hours as a kid. It goes surprisingly deep into most topics.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
This… This makes me so sad.
I count myself lucky that I’m a non-academic that has access to a physical library at work.
tangentism@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
It was just another form of enclosures where the wealthy locked off huge areas of the commons floor their own private gain and forced the rest of us to get a subscription
NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Line up to tha mind cemetery now
darthsundhaft@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
This is canonically accurate as in the beginning, it was basically universities that had the connections from “the Internet”. Of course, the defense dept had it first and then probably couldn’t figure out and gave it to smarter people. The rest is history.
deHaga@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Burners Lee invented the www and gave it away
Sillyglow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
“gotta keep the poors uneducated as possible. easier to control them.” - rich fux
BillionaireStew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Pratai@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Yep. All good things needlessly come to an end.
Toneswirly@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
Its never been easier to get free software, and if anyone is telling you the internet used to be easier to parse then they were not there in the beginning.
notabot@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Gopher sites were great for finding information, if the information was actually there. The tree structure made drilling down to what you needed very straightforward. Mind you, the internet was also small enough that I had downloaded and pribted a book that listed every site and a short description of what it contained.
Damage@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
lol no, I remember altavista categories sending you to shops. But it was a sane environment. Now the world’s gone crazy and the web with it.
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Wait, what? Now it’s easier than ever to find information on the internet, what difficulties do people have?
Is this person the one who writes “pls help me” in YouTube comments and doesn’t ever explain their problem or come back?
theneverfox@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
I strongly beg to differ
3 years ago, when I searched for something I found it. Even the esoteric little details buried in an old forum weren’t that hard to find
Now? It’s fine if you want the most common information, but it’s impossible to find the little details
And those little details are critical for developers. A single sentence can give you an answer that could easily take hours or days to figure out
Programmers aren’t only switching to AI because it’s easier… The old way of doing things has been crippled
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I just checked, my man pages are still there.
bold_omi@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
It is not easier to find information; real information exists still, but it has been drowned out by garbage. Consider Borges’s “The Library of Babel”, or watch the Fractal Philosophy video concerning “surviving a dead Internet”.
There is also the issue of knowledge being paywalled. Consider the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto and its context.
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I have no problem finding all the information I need, from the documentation of this weird python library, to the opening hours of my local restaurant, to the composition of a weird moon of jupiter, to the latest shenanigans of that politician.
I don’t care about tiktok content being fake and Instagram being taken over by bots, there never was useful information there anyway.
Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Objectively, a library under capitalism would rather be a bookstore. Theres no point to holding information because information isn’t profitable; replace that with entertainment. Steal some data so you can better target markets. Price out competition once you get large enough. Require paid membership to be given the privilege of renting the books once you have a monopoly.
JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The US, the most capitalistic country on the planet, has thousands of free libraries.
crandall@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
If you invented them today they’d call you a commie terrorist
musicalphysics@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Under a digital model libraries generally have to keep paying for digital licenses to books. So capitalism is making inroads against tax dollars and actively nullifying the majority of benefits of digital books.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Anyone else played around with reticulum?
Because it feels a lot like library-era internet.
saltnotsugar@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think the thing I miss most about the old internet was the fact that many people just produced things without worrying about getting paid all the time. Websites were basic but fun, people uploaded funny videos just for laughs, and sites like Reddit were hardly heard of.
Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The internet was also a place you went to, and you could actually turn it off or walk away. Not it’s everywhere and stitched into our entire lives.
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Image
M137@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
“We had computer rooms, and the Internet should have stayed in those.”
endless_nameless@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I still write and release open source software projects despite full well knowing they will likely have 0 users and that AI could replicate it in 1% the time I took. Doesn’t matter. I do it cause programming is what I love to do. I think it’s really sad that a lot of people have forgotten that’s the purpose of doing this kind of stuff. It’s not like we were ever gonna see a cent for it anyways. One of my projects was downloaded about 8000 times. That’s nice. Too bad it’s a project I discontinued because I no longer use it. No refunds!
Dialectical_Specialist@quokk.au 2 weeks ago
A programmer that does it for the love of the game! Here’s to hoping more people (yes human ppl, not agents) follow your example! These are the things that keep me vested in tech in the first place
coffeecake@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I love people like you. I can t believe I was talking to my partner about this very case of FOSS programmers who do it just to scratch an itch but still benefiting others and the world more than any sycho-corpo can ever hope to
Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I have a few projects like that and I used to create itch.io pages for them (at least for those related to gamedev). I’ve discontinued all of them years ago but recently I started getting notifications about people paying a dollar or two for them for no reason.
CheesyFingers@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
You’re an artist and i hope you see the importance in that.
ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What kind of projects are you working on? I really need to start some of my own or contribute to other projects but I’m not even sure where to begin.
Fmstrat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Me too. Me too.
djdarren@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Something that I get angry about occasionally is how so many people have had their hobbies stolen from them. Like people who’d tinker about in their spare time making music, now feeling like they have to monetise it, and feeling the stress of not being able to supplement their failing income because they’re just one artist in a sea of artists, someone without a major label giving them a push.
I don’t blame the people at all, we’re all just trying to get on in this increasingly shitty world.
I do a little radio show once a week. It’s reasonably popular, but not so much that I could ever think about giving up the day job, and my day job’s pay isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. But even I’m at a point where I’ve set up a Patreon where if anyone wants to kick in £3 a month, they can. Ultimately it just helps with the running costs of my VPS and domain renewal, and will hopefully give me enough to be able to pick up a new midi controller.
It’s fine, and people are happy to help out because they get to be a part of something they enjoy, but I hate that there’s been an increasingly vocal bit of my brane over the past year or so that’s been telling me that if everyone who listens paid £3 a month, I’d be ‘earning’ an extra £450 (give or take). According to my stats, the episode from a couple of weeks back is up to 250 listens on the podcast feed. That’s £750…
It’s my hobby. It’s a thing I enjoy doing. But if I’m not careful it’ll veer far too closely towards something I have to do, and that’ll kill it.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I think about this peach vinaigrette story a lot in that context: reddit.com/…/uusername_unavailable_offers_us_a_ca…
Please forgive the Reddit link.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Marx had a lot to say about this:
en.wikipedia.org/…/Marx's_theory_of_alienation
Dojan@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
This still exists, it’s just niche. Having a little personal website with all sorts of silliness and whatever you create is incredibly popular among the techie furries.
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah but I want to return to the days when normal people used the internet for fun, not just the freaks.
Rugnjr@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I have this debate all the time with people - so many people say things like “creators need to be paid else they won’t produce content” like nah that’s the whole problem. They produce shit content because they get paid. Flash etc had so much more soul