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When I started using the Internet, it was new, fresh, innovative and exciting. OK. It didn't look too hot in the early '90's, but it was a new technology, we all loved it anyway. Anybody could set up a web site and have the potential to make a small fortune.
However, since the .com boom and bust, there seems to be less and less opportunity, and more and more barriers to entry onto the "Super Highway". I used to be all for "the little guy" starting a web site, and making money without the intervention of major corporations, now though, the "suits" have taken over the cyber arena, and it is harder to have a good idea and get noticed. The Internet playing field used to be level, now it is tipped in favour of the big conglomerates.
The last big success story I heard about was friendsreunited.co.uk, but even the guy behind that had programming experience, nowadays you have to be fluent in so many different aspects of the Internet to even actually make your presence felt online.
I don't really know where I'm going with this, I just think it is a shame, that's all. The Internet used to be about "power to the people" now, it's all gone pear shaped.
"The Internet used to be about "power to the people" now, it's all gone pear shaped."
Commercialism... sums it up really. Look at Christames, Easter, Fireworks night, all no fun anymore due to becoming commercialised. As with all new things, there's always people out there that think about the money first. The internet came along, started out with an education slant, and then, BOOM!! Some bright spark discovered that you could make bucket loads out of it by commercialising the whole thing.
Everyone signed up, they invented new jobs, they blew huge budgets (on something very simple) and then they exhausted the market, failed to give any support and buggered off on thier yachts and were never seen again giving us left behind the job of clearing up and reassuring those who have been stung buy the .com vampires.
IMHO there's no chance of the net ever returning to the "power to the people" place it once was... And the sad things comes from seeing lots of "newbies" starting to go off and make the same mistakes all over again instead of listening to us who have been here through the thick and thin and learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.
I could rant on all day about how crap the net has become and how commercial it is, but I can whinge too much as it does pay my wages... BTW, I may be giving it all up... I've been offered a partnership in a golf club!!
Commercialism... sums it up really. Look at Christames, Easter, Fireworks night, all no fun anymore due to becoming commercialised. As with all new things, there's always people out there that think about the money first. The internet came along, started out with an education slant, and then, BOOM!! Some bright spark discovered that you could make bucket loads out of it by commercialising the whole thing.
Everyone signed up, they invented new jobs, they blew huge budgets (on something very simple) and then they exhausted the market, failed to give any support and buggered off on thier yachts and were never seen again giving us left behind the job of clearing up and reassuring those who have been stung buy the .com vampires.
IMHO there's no chance of the net ever returning to the "power to the people" place it once was... And the sad things comes from seeing lots of "newbies" starting to go off and make the same mistakes all over again instead of listening to us who have been here through the thick and thin and learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.
I could rant on all day about how crap the net has become and how commercial it is, but I can whinge too much as it does pay my wages... BTW, I may be giving it all up... I've been offered a partnership in a golf club!!
It depends what you visit really. I haven't visited a corporate site in yonks, just ones written by little people with an ounce of design talent. Actually, I've spent most of the last week at classic.themes.org.
When I started using the Internet, it was new, fresh, innovative and exciting. OK. It didn't look too hot in the early '90's, but it was a new technology, we all loved it anyway. Anybody could set up a web site and have the potential to make a small fortune.
However, since the .com boom and bust, there seems to be less and less opportunity, and more and more barriers to entry onto the "Super Highway". I used to be all for "the little guy" starting a web site, and making money without the intervention of major corporations, now though, the "suits" have taken over the cyber arena, and it is harder to have a good idea and get noticed. The Internet playing field used to be level, now it is tipped in favour of the big conglomerates.
The last big success story I heard about was friendsreunited.co.uk, but even the guy behind that had programming experience, nowadays you have to be fluent in so many different aspects of the Internet to even actually make your presence felt online.
I don't really know where I'm going with this, I just think it is a shame, that's all. The Internet used to be about "power to the people" now, it's all gone pear shaped.