i think we need Cracked-style articles back. desperately. or like, a guy doing a weird thing and writing a piece on it. sites like those are declining faster than the glaciers.

  • @RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    398 months ago

    The creativity and willingness to share.

    Anyone could make a crappy site.

    Anyone could fire up some phpBB.

    People created a lot of stuff that mainstream commercial developers weren’t willing to invest time in. Think windows power toys, mp3 players or converters, game mods, all the little things that filled the gaps in mainstream OS and other software. Add the free stuff that people made like Blender or other specialized software that did what commercial software did but for free.

    Flash games.

    Linux distros.

    Hobbies and how-tos.

    There was so much stuff. Now it’s all mostly locked down under DRM or whatever.