There was for a brief period what I like to call the "wild west" of the web. All just shitty phpBB and whatnot boards for every topic. There was no concept of social media. I genuinely got to know the people, mods, smods, gmods, admins, superadmins (the list of "positions" was always comically long and induced great drama on most communities). I visited many of those people I formed connections with online, in person. I feel like social media has swallowed the people from these communities and created large "highways" instead of communities.
Facebook groups just aren't the same. There's something comforting knowing it was "just some fucking guy" hosting the website for fun.
I think that kind of cultural expression is something we need to protect and keep alive.
A future when all of our communities, all of our social interactions, are routed two a small amount of services hosted by great companies is one I don't look forward to.
That kind of thing - just setting something up for the hell of it, and slowly building a community, or a group of friends that way - to me it's very special.
I remember when I first encountered BBSes (mid to late 80s). Dialing into a slew of local systems and enlarging my social circle. Then there was the Internet and many of my former BBS social circle were deriding it, saying it didn't have that community feel.
I remember when I first encountered USENET (early 90s). Reading scores of USENET groups and enlarging my social circle, even going to far as to go to a yearly meeting one group held for several years. Then there was the World Wide Web that everything was being funneled in to. Most of the USENET crowd I was with were deriding it, saying it didn't have that community feel.
I remember when I first encountered Slashdot (late 90s). Reading score of comments on trending topics and again, enlarging my social circle. Then there was Digg and many on Slashdot were deriding that, saying it didn't have that community feel ...
I also remember when no one could get fired for buying IBM, and when no one could get fired for buying Microsoft. Both were also (and still are) billion dollar corporations.
I feel a bit the same way. I was running a BBS in 90s, which allowed only one person to connect at a time. I ended up meeting a big bunch of my users in person.
To recreate this, maybe I'll try starting a video chat when random people want to ask me for advice. Tried that today when someone sent me a random message on FB asking me for advice about living in Japan, was fun.
Facebook groups just aren't the same. There's something comforting knowing it was "just some fucking guy" hosting the website for fun.