why does everyone keep ignoring my posts

Why are you guys having a big discussion about social media in a random guy's thread about LMW lol

With regard to your first sentence: yeah, I never said the pre-2008 internet was a flawless paradise, nor that the post-2008 internet is an irredeemable hell. All I said was that mainstream embrace of social media, corporate consolidation and therefore a drop in quality, all began occurring in earnest around 2008. You haven't been able to argue against that premise, just point out that the early days had flaws too, which no one is disputing. Again, we can debate the year things started getting noticeably worse, but to deny any change has occurred at all is not a defensible premise in my opinion. 

With regard to your second sentence: that's total nonsense. AOL helped bring the masses to the world wide web but it's unfounded to say there was no good content until they came around. In fact, I'm sure some of the old Usenet veterans who know what terms like "eternal September" / "the September that never ended" mean would balk at that statement. If anything, they'd probably argue that the advent of AOL was itself the beginning of the end. 

And to the person who asked why I'm talking about this: because I wrote a throwaway line about the decline of the internet in one of my posts and that's what extremewreck2000 decided to follow up on. I put a lot of thought into that line and stand by what I said, so that's why we're expanding on that point of discussion for a bit. Sometimes that happens in the process of a conversation. 

So what is your premise exactly? That the internet has actually gotten better and better indefinitely, or that the internet reached a high point and then receded? Because I could agree with the latter.

Honestly though, I wasnt old enough to know the pre AOL internet personally. So, when I said "pre 2008 internet" I concede it would have been better to stick with what I can personally vouch for. So, if I was to put an upper limit on it now, I guess I'd say the 95-07 internet was the best.

That being said, I don't think it's fair to suggest nothing of value was ever communicated or created on the pre AOL days either. Or that we havent lost something important from that era, imperfect as it may have been overall. The early internet was built on the principles of decentralization, libertarianism and a meritocracy of ideas, where it didn't matter who you were, only the quality of what you were communicating.

I maintain that the advent of Facebook was when the concept of blending your online persona with your real identity via social media reached a critical mass in mainstream society. That represented a turning point in the way people use the web, the way they understand the web, and how they integrate the web into their lives. That changed the web from being just a tool to look up information into a curated brand, a way
of life, a pseudo-social credit rating and in some cases a monopoly on communicating with certain people.

The concurrent rise of the first "internet success stories" into monolithic conglomerates with the power to influence the very laws and infrastructure which govern the net itself was another turning point. That changes how end users access information. It means an online oligopoly has control over our personal information. It means the powers that be, they who got a foothold in time, have a deathgrip on startups, some nation states and any up and comers among the underclass. That's world changing.

Either we move this debate to the matter of a specific year when we reached the point of no return...or agree to disagree and move on. Otherwise, I'd love to have a talk about political science and philosophy in private messages. I want to discuss with someone the way we gave so much power to these corporations, the laws governing which are younger than the constitution and the idea of changing those laws never seems to be up for debate.

You know, if there ever is one kind of post I make that not only people ignore, but people would HATE me if they didn't, it's probably my posts for well... THIS:
lostmediawiki.com/RSD_Game_Maker_(partially_lost_video_games_made_on_MS-DOS_game_engine;_1991-present)

You see... this engine has a pretty chill fanbase, & one of the most chill ones out there. Outside of it however, it is nearly despised due to some of the faulty stuff that would happen in these games, such as the graphics engine overloading when a character goes on a diagonal angle on top of the screen, a camera that isn't all that well, & not to mention Virtual Mario, which is a showcase on what NOT to do on an RSD Game Maker game.

I'm a fan of this engine, & even I can note a few duds here, & there like that one I just mentioned, as well as most of the Sherwood Forest Software titles, the Gary Acord titles, & Friction, maybe a few others as well.

But you guys would probably(and MOST CERTAINLY) not have the same appreciation I have, & would despise me for even liking this engine at all. There exists a whole website dedicated to it, but it's long dead now, more than likely because Aderack(Eric-Jon Rossel) not only has a busy life, but this engine's reputation outside of the fanbase would be too much for him to handle.

Well, you got a good point there. Besides, everytime I go into these forums, I'm basically no help for anyone, & only cause harm. Oh, & that RSD Game Maker thing I'm talking about. Yeah, you'd outright despise me for that. Thing is, I'm not the kind of person who is an expert on how to find things. I usually only tend to find things unexpectedly. I tried that a few times, & well, nothing of what I'm looking for.

Seriously, one time I tried looking for info on K-Tel Software, thinking they had something about Yeah Yeah Beebiss 1(me being a stupid person thinking it was some kind of Beatles parody game), especially considering they released a ZX Spectrum game called It's Only Rock 'n' Roll that also parodied the Beatles. I tried going through it, & found out that I was a freakin' moron for even remotely thinking that.

Also, I've tried searching for more RSD Game Maker games available to play since Aderack has managed to do so, but no luck so far. I made a thread where I looked through Classic PC Games for some RSD Game Maker games that were once thought lost, or even ones that Aderack didn't know existed, but NOPE. Apparently what we have so far is all that remains of that engine on the whole internet. Crazy to think that RSD Game Maker has pretty much been drove underground for as long as it did, even if a whole website dedicated to it exists. If there does exist more RSD Game Maker games, & they're available somewhere, it is most likely that they're one extremely obscure ROM sites nobody goes to. Other than that ideaology as to where to find more, it's most likely that more than 70%(there's no exact number for how much is lost as of now because we only have so many names tossed around for this engine) of the games made for that engine are probably lost forever, especially since most people who used them were simply random hobbyists at their home, which meant that it was more likely for their works to go missing(heck, that's the case for pre-2000s indie games in general).

I really wish I was able to do that back in those times. Just create about 12 accounts just for the lolz, with 11 of them being joke accounts with funny names like "GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!", or "Don't ask why I'm growing watermelons in a restaurant".

This, politics causes high drama and debate online these days that I rather not participate in