Yes I am old.

I started using the internet before there where search engines around. The best way to find stuff was to hope that somebody made a talking URL. Like when you wanted to know about movies you tried www.cinema.com and www.movies.com.

The next thing where web rings. Like minded people with different homepages had a link on their front page which led to a different website with a similar topic. Worked great.

After that we had newsgroups and forums.

All that is now all but gone. I still have a subscription to a usenet server for newsgroups but the traffic there is less then some maillingslists. I also have my own forum which is devoid of life. I take care of our local hobby club forum which is also almost dead. And development of said forum software hasn’t gone anywhere in over 14 months.

Are forums now finally dead? I’m afraid so.

Convenience and laziness have taken over and people have massed in „Groups“ of at facebook. And it’s horrible. Not because of the people but because facebook keeps changing and adding stuff and if you try to find anything… well, good luck skipper!

Some have shifted to Discord but that is (again) a walled garden and more chat than discussion (even with the „forum feature“) It’s just impossible to keep up with all that is going on inside.

And the worst part: when facebook or discord go belly up or decide to change terms of service: all you work and love you have put into a group will just vanish.

So what to do?

Maintain a blog. Make it available to everyone on the internet. And try to curate a list of friends and fellow hobbyists. Don’t trust companies to provide for you. One way or the other they will make you pay.

Enjoy the internet. Rant over.

Fuck I’m old. And grumpy.