The more I explore old internet technologies, the more I realize how many interesting ideas existed long before modern social networks.
Over the past few days, people on Nostr and Stacker News have introduced me to things like Gopher, FidoNet, Finger, eMule and its Kad network, and .plan files. Some of these I had never even heard of before.
It all started with me looking for interesting things to try on my old antiX netbook. Now I have a growing list of old technologies to explore.
What surprises me is that some of these systems were already doing things decades ago that we are still discussing today.
It makes me wonder if modern software has really improved everything or if we have made some things more complicated than they need to be.
Do you think modern software is always better? Or are there things we actually did better in the old days?
I think much (most?) of modern commercial subscription software is a slave to trying to monetize itself. All kinds of crappy design decisions are made, that serve only that purpose.
Older stuff was often better, because ongoing monetization wasn't a concern - it was often a one-time purchase.
I hadn't really thought about it from that angle before. You're right. A lot of modern software seems more focused on keeping people paying than simply doing its job well. I guess that's one reason why some older programs still feel so good to use. You bought them once and could keep using them without worrying about subscriptions or features suddenly disappearing behind a paywall. It's strange that we've made so much progress in technology, but in some ways we have less control over the software we use.
It makes me thing of Canva, the design software.
I used if for free for a while - it was completely cluttered and everything was made difficult to do, because they always had to try to get you to upgrade to the pro version.
Finally I got the Pro subscription. And then I was so pissed off to discover that there was just as much junk littering my screen, trying to get me to upgrade to various other levels, or buy special design packages...
Maddening. Ironically, I still use it. Just the free version though.
That's a really good point. I sometimes have to use Canva for my kids' school projects, and I've had the same experience. Every time I try to do something, there's another feature I have to pay for or another upgrade being offered. I just want to finish a simple design, not keep spending money on subscriptions.