Eerie

That's not a current trend, that's just statistics. The larger the sample is, the closer it's median is to the median of the whole set of data. It was always this way.

However, people can still build their own smaller on-line communities. With sites like Reddit, it's easier than even. You have r/TumblrInAction, r/ShitRedditSays, and everything in between.

“I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.” ― Alan Moore, Watchmen

Newbie: "Remember the time when 4chan was good?"

Veteran: "4chan was never good."

"4chan" can be easily replaced with "Twitter" or "The Internet" here.

2. There's a universal tendency for people to reminisce fondly about the good old days and contrast them with the ostensibly bad present. It has nothing to do with the truth. It is simply a syndrome of getting old. People were doing it 3000 years ago.

You've just described the entire technological progress of humanity. People dreaming about solving engineering problems... and then solving them.

Musk is doing SOMETHING, at least. The technology that SpaceX develops can and will be used for much more than just Elon's particular vision of Mars colony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BdQcJ2ZYY

He is unconvincing.

The judge won't care how smart you think it was.

Serious question. No intention to insult.

You are on the Internet, not sitting in a pub with no wi-fi. Instead of writing "if I remembered it right", why not spend 2 minutes googling, to find out how AdBlock Plus actually operates?

This would be an amazing development. 99.9% of the providers who switch to paid subscription will go out of business, because their content is toxic garbage that people will never click if it cost them money. The remaining will be those who care about quality and consider the viewers to be their customers, not their product.

Or use uBlock Origin, which supposedly has it integrated (I'm not sure, as I'm using AdBlock Plus)

Ad-blocking had already won. I haven't (involuntary) seen ads for several years now. There were a few regressions here and there, but they were all fixed extremely fast. The new fancy ad-block detectors were defeated in a matter of days.

26% ad-blocking is a nice start, but the real fun begins when it is at +96%, and Google/Facebook/InsertNameHere lose their main source of income.

I think a very strong and concerted push to outlaw ad-blocking is almost inevitable, but ultimately it will be as futile as trying to outlaw the BitTorrent protocol.

Will the ad-supported crap-manufacturing eyeball factory that is the modern Internet crash and burn, leaving only Patreon to stand atop the pile of ruins?

We can but hope.

I'd like BuzzFeed to lead the fight with a good example - by shutting itself down.

Sheesh, are their ego's really so brittle?

Stop wasting your time!