Hacker News Reader

Comment by lxgr | Hacker News Reader

The Internet being an opt-in thing that you'd consciously connect to at a set our of the day, not something that would reach out to you and notify you about all kinds of things at random times, was definitely a different feeling.

Back then, it felt like a parallel world; now it's more like an overlay on this one.

View on HN

I guess AI is the next thing that's still opt-in now, will be opt-out tomorrow and then no-escape. It would be interesting to read a nostalgic thread from 2070...

That's life isn't it? Mailing addresses, electricity, car-based transportation in the US, technologies and cultural institutions change and create worlds dependent on them to function. There was probably a time when the very idea that you stayed up after the sun set was seen as a silly modern affliction and indeed for most of human prehistory humans did not have access to artificial lighting. Now there are people, like me, who consider themselves as night owls.

This captures it quite well. I remember due to having dial up until around 2008, I’d compose a forum post “offline” on the computer, save it as a text file on a flash drive (previously a floppy!), and get around to posting it when I was able to get online.

Same for emails, etc. communication felt a lot more “thought out” in a sense - you would have limited time to send or receive information.

This is one of those things where I just don't understand what world people are living in, but it's always written in this bizarre passive voice where someone is just "the victim" of installing the Facebook app on their phone.

What is your experience of your phone and why are you so passive about it? You're getting unwanted notifications but, then, what, don't uninstall the app? Don't mute the app? Don't click "sign out"?

Facebook and its ilk are barred from issuing notifications on my devices. There’s so little real ‘friend’ interaction these days I don’t miss anything and they abused notifications so thoroughly by literally spamming me random group stuff that I’ve just disabled notifications as a way of counteracting the lack of granularity. Must be five years now.

It seems like you’re projecting a value statement into a comment which was really only intended to be an observation.

What gave you the idea that I’m getting unwanted notifications or that I am in some other way helpless about them?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com