The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences

So the past of the internet?

The original web 3 was supposed to be a return to form of web 1, with the good stuff of web 2 and decentralized. Then cryptobros hijacked it
- Yes and, We're taking it back.
  https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/how-to-get-started-in-the-fediverse/
  There's more than just lemmy
- I don't think I've really seen any literature about web3 that wasn't a crypto scam in a trench coat. Do you have any links or info about the original goals of web3?
History rhymes and all that
Everything old is new again.

Basically forums

Maybe we’ll use newsgroups for actually talking to people again
The thing is that many people, myself included assumed most were dead and cannibalised by Reddit and Facebook groups. Turns out those specialised places have been running continuously on their own pace. Yeah, threads can still span hundreds of pages but in the end going through them makes you an expert on things overnight ;)
- Oh my God, the Something Awful forums are still up: https://forums.somethingawful.com/
Bring them back! I for one would rather use a forum over a fucking Discord server any day of the week. At least forums are open, searchable and discoverable. Good luck finding the answer to a question you have that some poor sod like you may have also asked in a Discord server months or years ago.
- God I hate discord.
And mailing lists!
Yes, but this time deep web forums that are unsearchable/unindexed so that information is lost forever! (Discord, telegram, matrix)actually that might actually be a return to web 1 forums before search engines were giant and all forum seach engines sucked ass 😂

It is for me, but I have my doubts that the majority will avoid the corporate-owned spaces.

I think it's always going to be a sort of long-tail phenomenon, with most people involved in the biggest platforms, but a large number of small platforms that attract a minority of the overall population.
They're getting so shit people will have no choice. They're already leaving one alienated group at a time

I think by now we have figured out the majority of people are garbage and you only want to spend time with a select group. Discord seems to have this figured out.

The only thing which has changed is the medium.
- astronaut holding gun meme.jpg
  we've always been garbage.
It depends on the discord. I joined a discord where the most narcissistic people were there and they singled me out for whatever reason because I wasn't just simply going with their thinking. There was another member that thought like me but their own narcissi tendencies made up a conspiracy theory that somehow that was my alt. I didn't even know the guy irl. It's a shame as I was interested in the subject matter of the discord but I guess if enough village idiots own a discord, the smart villager is seen as the idiot.

Sounds a lot like the past. And, actually, a bit like the current internet. Custom websites, feed syndication, etc. didn't disappear, they just shrank in the face of behemoth platforms.

I think the future of the internet is darknets for example Veilid.
- The darknets are here, have been here, but are by definition: dark, so unless you're in one they're useless to you.
  First rule of darknet membership: don't talk about the darknet.
- Unless something's changed in the last few years, the darknet is too difficult for normies to use.
Your worldbuilding is in SciFi classics tier, but it's missing all of the global South.
Australia is already more locked out, but its Internet can only exist in function of US.
You think the current US would stop at Canada and Mexico?
- Panama, Greenland, after that might as well take the rest of Central America, move all the people out to the Galapagos Islands and build an all inclusive ocean to ocean resort complex.

Check out Neocities, a great community of indie web fans, built in the spirit of the old GeoCities sites.

Some really great sites there, it really captures that late 90's to early 2000's internet vibes.

Definitely depends on the site because I've seen some impressive modern looking sites in the past, but a lot of sites I find on there definitely encapsulate that vibe in a great way.

...smaller communities

So like it was before the dawn of Reddit and social media?

Sign me the fuck up. I miss my dumb little websites with a dodgy layout full of terribly cropped gifs.

But how will we find any of these small sites with the dogshit search is lately.
- Webrings, index pages, pure chance

I wasn't too early, but I joined reddit around the Dota 2 beta, so circa 2012, and damn the site became more and more garbage the more people it had, most comments became nothing but karma farming one liners, references or snide shit.

Communities grew into massive echo chambers, quality of discussions went down the drain.

The future is the past!

One might suggest that it should have always been that way.

Just like as it was in the past

You've found the leading light of destiny burning in the ashes of your memory.

I firmly believe that connecting people to their IRL friends is an important part of the potential of the Internet, as it is shown by Facebook, for example.

But I also believe there are people looking to connect with new people and finding a community where they can express themselves wholly. I think the current Internet is weak in this regard, weaker than it has been before, but I think it's possible to build a place where people can connect.

I have a friends Discord I set up a year before Covid, and for about a year only 3 people used it, mainly to play some games together.
But when Covid hit, it obviously gained some traction. And now it's THE place I interact with friends since I've long ditched the likes of Facebook.
I keep going back and forth on whether or not to possibly set up a Mastodon server for friends. The hardest part would be convincing people to use it. But it could just be like our little shared space that could still interact with the wider world. It'd be kinda cool to have a Local feed be just people you know in real life.
- A small friend group is best suited for chat programs (discord et al.) But if you want to expand the group a mastodon server is a good idea
Pretty much. I should be able tobmake friends with any human on earth with an internet connection. That this is still hard is something we need to fix

"the future of the internet is likely its past..."

Discourse has some of the forums that use it on its website
The best I can think of off hand is to look at the mobile apps that are designed to interact with traditional forums, because they will have directories of all the ones that are integrated with them. For example, Tapatalk and Fora Communities. You should be able to find thousands of forums categorized in those apps? I've never used these apps myself, but have heard of them.
This is what Google used to be for.

I think they meant human-curated.
- I'd say genuine. Genuine experiences. Sharing shit for sharing's sake. Not for better SEO. Not for profit. Just unadulterated human expression.
  That's how I envision using the internet for entertainment in the near future. I'll still use the shitty corporate sites when I must, for transactional browsing. I'm not going to pretend I can push Amazon, Microsoft, Google, online banking, etc. out of my life just like that.
  But I will actively seek authentic spaces. They will be a tad smaller than your average social network, Reddit, and whatnot. But I'm certain they're out there and more people will join me in this search and populate these small spaces as time goes on.
  Lemmy, Mastodon, the IndieWeb movement. The first steps. I hope to find more!
Not all of Reddit works, but some of it does for some people, and the reason it works for them is because the moderators shape communities that the community members enjoy participating in.
Personally, I think active communities below the Dunbar number (about 150) in size are some of the most rewarding to participate in, long term. But, there are always a lot of people who flock to wherever the biggest crowds are.

First the internet needs to rise against techno-fascism!!

We should be able to bootstrap activityPub to GeoCities websites. WordPress integration is taking a long time.

That's backwards, activitypub is higher level than websites. And you can literally make a website already and embed an activitypub stream

The future of the web may be relearning the browser (and other tools)

https://tildeverse.org/

Links like that feel like the time I first had access to the Internet. Kinda weird but very very interesting. Thank you.
- Full disclosure: I've been part of that cluster of communities for a couple years now. Best advice i have to give to anyone is to take their time. The speed of conversation often slows way WAY down.

And preferably a bit harder to use to keep the script kiddies out.

Most small group forums have manual user validation with very specific questions.
I’ve seen stuff like “what is on the the 5th page of the user guide for this product” along with language/culture specific questions you can’t just easily google on forums that are focused on a specific area

the title is the description of reddit/lemmy/etc

"Silos" that echo.

And that's how it started. are we approaching a big crunch of sorts?

First infinity didn't go great. Not sure I want to see more.

so lemmy.

Does the Networking Effect suddenly no longer apply to internet applications? Seems like we're just seeing people gradually migrate from older and less functional applications like Twitter and Facebook over to newer and more functional applications like BlueSky and RedNote.

Heck no.