The internet used to feel like a treasure hunt. Let’s bring that back.
The internet used to feel like a treasure hunt. Let’s bring that back.
No fluff, no clickbait — just hidden gems, underrated tools, indie games/ films & lot more. Discover the best corners of the internet, curated for you by Coi.
Remember when the internet felt like a giant treasure hunt instead of just… cycling through the same five apps? Yeah, me too. That’s why I started COI (Corners of Internet)—a place where I dig up weird, fun, and happy corners of the web so you don’t have to.
No algorithms. No doomscrolling. Just pure internet exploration.
If it’s cool, underrated, or a little unhinged, it goes on COI.
Check it out: www.cornersofinternet.com
Also, if you’ve got a favorite weird site, drop it below! I’m always looking for new rabbit holes to fall into.
Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm a 50+), I don't know, but when I see a 'Buy me (something)' or a 'tip me' first thing first on the home page even before I can get any idea of what I will find on the website I'm not likely to explore further. I thought you might want to know about that, even I may be in the minority.
Just in case:
- Nope, I'm not cheap. I just want to know who and why I'm supposed to be paying a coffee to (or a pizza) before I decide I want to do it, or not to do it.
- I'm always very happy to see people trying to refocus attention toward a less corporate-owned Internet.
- I hope it was clear it's nothing personal, just my first reaction on visiting your page. I'll explore it further ;)
Some feedback: the "hi I'm coi" thing at the top? I thought it was another LLM AI thing introducing itself. I closed the tab immediately, but then double checked when I read the rest of this post.
The social media links at the top, especially Twitter, are a negative for me. Fuck twitter and Facebook.
The big color buttons (that are not actually buttons) interspersed with text is a choice but it feels very bad-modern to me. If you're going for more retro pre-shit, maybe take inspiration from https://evenbettermotherfucking.website/ or friends.
The internet used to feel like a treasure hunt because it wasn't indexed well, and a large part of the surface content were pages made by oddball people letting their weirdness run wild without social limitations.
Sure, algorithms keep most normies in a social media ecosystem, but it's also not exactly easy for me to make a truly anonymous website about the awesome predictions I've made from looking at the patterns in my breakfast cereal every morning - AND just let it be. There's pressure to promote it, crosspost it, etc. Even the fun of thought experiments posted to a GeoCities page come with risks now.
Maybe I'm jaded and lack the youthful energy to stay up until 4:30am slapping im14amdthisisdeep stuff somewhere. Maybe everyone else that's just slightly weird still expects to get paid for that with ads when it all used to be free and fun.
Love the idea! Kinda like fark.com before they got all shitty.
It looks so busy. I like https://wiby.me/ that uses search or a surprise me for the similar idea. It is so clean. see https://wiby.me/about/
This is pretty good and cool. Already found some hidden gems I didn't know about. Possible suggestion for another category is for youtube channels. Youtube's algorithm sucks now and there are only about 4 youtube channels I regularly watch. So it'll be cool to have a category to suggest good content creators on youtube .
This seems neat.
It's not just the Internet, though. There are no more gatekeepers or water coolers and everything is fed on demand. Have you noticed that TV and movie events have slowed down to a trickle? Ever found a cool show on a streaming service and found that nobody is talking about it unless you go search for some community of five people who are super into it? Nobody is playing any games and talking about them unless they're finding them through some influencer or they're just the same four big games that have dominated the market for the better part of a decade.
That's not going to revert back with something like this, I'm afraid. We've just lost the structures that got people to share in those collective moments and I'm not sure there's a way of bringing them back. On this side of the apocalypse, anyway, so maybe that'll fix itself.