Internet fundamentalism doesn't actually work.

[reddragdiva]

There's an antipattern that Internet social sites tend to: people get nostalgic for the old times, and think that if they can just get rid of these annoying newcomers they'll get the old site back again just like they remember. The primary fallacy is that the reason it was interesting back then was that nobody knew what they were doing and what would come next; attempting to encase that in carbonite is unlikely to achieve the desired effect. The secondary fallacy is that they themselves are different people now.

(thinking of two example sites going through precisely this angst right now. And of another, where a Usenet newsgroup from 15 years ago just revived itself on Facebook, and it appears to be working precisely because we're different people now so it's interesting again and we don't know what happens next.)

Edit: Now a slightly longer pontification.

Comments

Not limited to the internet

[(Anonymous)]

Same for all societies and scenes really... Everyone suffers blinkered nostalgia for a golden era, be it before immigration or before cybergoth.

It's surely partly to do with how we form and keep longer term memories in general, bot individually and as a group.

- Marge xxx

Retro racket

[hairyears]

Usenet?

Which bit?

Re: Retro racket

[reddragdiva]

alt.gothic.

[tenshikurai9.livejournal.com]

I don't have permission to access the slightly longer pontification.

[reddragdiva]

Cache is buggered. Thumping ...

[reddragdiva]

Try now!