Sometimes I miss the old days of internet search. Sure, you had to hunt through half a dozen pages of results to find the information you were looking for. But half the fun is in the search. The other half is ending up in places you never would have thought to go on your own. These days you can find what you're looking for in a few clicks. Somehow that makes the internet feel smaller.
Sometimes I miss the old days of horse and carriage. Sure, you had to travel for half a dozen days to get to your family for christmas. But half the fun is in the travelling. The other half is ending up in places you never would have thought to go on your own. These days you can travel the planet in half a day. Somehow that makes the world feel smaller.
Contrary to the way that might look, this isn't a FTFY post. It's more a commentary on how the old ways of doing things seem to be romanticised - I remember diskless 16 colour terminals and a RISC server backing them up in primary school, I remember dogpile and altavista over dial-up a few years later (back when they were comparitively useful) - and that's the way it was, and better than what came before. What we have now is impressive, but in 10-15 years it will be outdated, cute, people will comment "How did we ever get by without $foo back then?" and kids will be saying "how did you ever find things without video search and live mm-resolution sat feeds for navigation?". I agree with your point - the internet seems smaller, even though there's exponentially more information on it than before (admittedly, most of it is garbage). As you seem to be implying, we're used to finding the information we need, everyone on /. is a jaded netizen where nothing is surprising, and the magic of finding somewhere new seems to have disappeared due to the google revolution. As a signature around here somewhere says, "The revolution will not be televised".
The frightening part is that I'm only 25. My lawn - it'll be growing here soon, 7-digit UID's might want to think about getting off it.
./Rockwolf