I agree, but it's been said by all...

make homebrew software for an old Nintendo console

pick up cross stitching or weaving

make an independent film with a friend; use stuff from your kitchen as props

find a borderline functional instrument at your local thrift store

write a 1 page short story in pen

it's not enough anymore to merely criticize this bad time we're having

Even the fun things “on the internet” are mostly still possible, it’s just the bulk of things we do now are not fun and main companies aren’t quirky risk takers but the oil/train/steel barons of our day.

In the past few years I’ve done serveral of the things on your list in earnest and they are all easier to do today (specifically technical things) than they were 25 years ago (except maybe writing with a pen).

Edit to add: if I have to join another messaging platform for a single, specific group I’m going to move to the woods and require written correspondence. It’s automated phone service level of frustration.

This. Yes, the mass internet is curated, created and censored. Usenet is a distant memory. But some changes are positive.

I recently retired. I've programmed for 50 years, both for work and for fun. My son asked: so what's your project? I had to think about it, and I've decided to learn GPU programming - something completely new to me.

With AI as a tutor, this will be massively easier than at any time in the past. In some ways, the state of AI now is reminiscent of the state of the internet 25 years ago.

I concur! Explore the big, bold world outside the internet.

Or, on the internet, stop spending your valuable time on bottom-feeder content like medium articles, facebook, twitter/bluesky, rant blogs, news websites etc.

Or just make homebrew.

It’s amazing how good just fermenting juice from the supermarket with a bit of added sugar can be.

It teaches patience and the blip blop of an airlock is a terrifically calming way to mark the passage of time.

Everything you said is good, but I think it misses the point of the blog post.

The internet was special because it was a place to share those weird, human endeavors.

I can do all I want in the solitude of my home but I want to share it! The internet is where you can find people with common interests that you can't find in people you know IRL. That was the escape. Finally you feel less alone, a stranger on the other side of the world feels the same way!

That's what was optimized. We were herded into centralized algorithmic bubbles, optimized for creation and consumption but not for sharing. Sharing has some care in it, a common need for something, a connection between two or more people. The internet has been optimized for consumption. Everyone is consuming in the same place, repeating the same jokes, and it all moves too fast to even recognize the same usernames you might see.

It all moves too fast, there's little incentive for platform owners to make a place where people actually connect at the speed of human socializing because if you're busy connecting, you're not seeing the next ad.

Also I'd just like to add, reddit killed the classic forum. Many are gone, some are holding on by a thread. You can't just "avoid the bad parts" because the bad parts consumed the good parts.

A little while ago I got my hodge podge Amazon soldering kit out and took the time to fix two DMG-01 Game Boys from my childhood. I opened up a bunch of PS5 controllers and replaced the analog sticks with hall sensors.

Nothing about what I did was impressive. I’m a novice at best. But I haven’t felt so fulfilled in such a long time. I had a serious moment of thinking, “I wish I could quit my career and just repair electronics for people.”

as someone who laments the loss of spaces and pastimes that once brought people together -- bowling alleys, dance halls, pubs, movie houses, etc. -- to work from home, home entertainment and especially anything and everything online, I keep hoping for some kind of reversal.

Maybe the day is getting closer when anything and everything internet-related is so drenched in uncanny artifice and extractionary intention that people will yearn for imperfect, multidimensional reality, and feel like the best thing they can do with their time is walk through the park with a friend.

That seems kind of like a non-sequiter none of that stuff has anything to do with what made the internet special so I don't see how doing so would help either bring the internet back or create a viable alternative.

I think the issue is that while you can (and perhaps should) do at least one such thing, it's going to be a pretty lonely pursuit, unless you have a pre-existing group of people to connect over this.

The Internet used to be really good at random, unscripted collaboration. But the winner-takes-all nature of modern social media means that if you do not optimize your presentation for maximum engagement, you will not even be noticed.

Even people who would've greatly enjoyed what you have to tell them will instead be fed a mix of generic engagement slop, sort-of relevant influencer videos, vaguely targeted ads and political propaganda.

A: "The vibe at my favorite bar has changed"

B: "You are still perfectly capable of having fun in life"

I don't really get how B follows from A. B is true, but A wasn't implying not-B.

Over the last few years my wife and I have grown into a community of awesome people. It makes all the difference. Do literally anything you can offline. Go to some meet up. Volunteer. Go to a con or an event. Learn an instrument. Literally anything. Do as if your long term mental health depends on it, because it just might. Be silly. Be cringe. Dress up. Get far far away from the internet with actual people.

I swapped to Linux last year and my computer has actually been fun. Bazzite is great. I barely tinker with it if ever and it’s mostly because I feel like it, not out of necessity. I have a very reliable gaming and video editing machine, mostly using open source stuff, and I am in no way a coder/programmer/engineer. I just love using it.

Tinkering with retro consoles has also been very satisfying. I would say more than half of the consoles in my home are modded in some way or another. My kids love it.

Then of course there’s film photography. Talk about a great way to force yourself to be intentional and patient. You can buy any dinky camera and a nifty 50 for like $100, it’ll work just fine. Just get out there and shoot and send off your rolls to be processed. Even just getting one or two good shots out of a roll feels fantastic. Every single photo you take matters and is memorable. It’s refreshing.

> pick up cross stitching or weaving

Ironically, it was the Jacquard Loom that made redundant a generation of highly-skilled, mostly female, weavers.

Of course, any human can choose to take up this hobby manually, but we will never again compete in the job market with machines that are accurate, blindingly fast, and so far haven’t demanded the right to vote

all of these things are not internet.