Like the Gracenote* CD database, there were some bad feelings about the commercialization of content created by unpaid volunteers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database#As_a_su...

*When I went to look up info on the Gracenote/Freedb controversy, I found it had been scrubbed from Wikipedia. Hmmn.

It's a mystery to me that nobody took that to court and claimed as the victim of an unfair contractual arrangement.

Also, good luck trying to get any of your personal information removed from it (eg I added my date and exact birthplace years ago in the mistaken belief that I could filter my own private/public data). Their attitude is that once you've given them a piece of data, they own it.

Just to add a couple facts to the context of IMDb being older than the browser...

According to http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/fbrowser.html the first web browser prototype was developed in late 1990/early 1991. Mosaic was released in March of 1993.

The extremely short time scales involved in www history always amaze me. Was there any other invention in human history that was so widely used in such a short time?

imdb was what got me interested in computers

its such a shame its actually got less useful since that first time I used it.

Really? How so?

just general usability, you never used to have to be logged in to view discussions (logging in loses your location) along with the crazy default of seeing 1 post per page in a conversation, the adverts (I am sure ive seen some pop ups in there as well) and general cramped ui.

to be fair the ui hasnt changed all that much since the early days, but my expectations have :)

That was true about discussions for a while but they fixed it somewhat recently. Now, you can view discussions without being logged in but you have to log in to switch it from single post view to threaded/flat view mode.

It's true that a major facelift would be a good idea. They have been making minor redesigns over time, but nothing major.

Or they can just offer a metered API and people would Mint them.

Holy crap, it's older than me!

Older than the Web Browser isn't a big deal. EMAIL is older than the Web browser...