This is devastating. I have so many fond memories of meeting fellow weirdos over text. The days where StumbleUpon always took you somewhere exciting, cool, beautiful, interesting, funny, or novel. Where you looked at what people did with The Web 2.0 and only marveled at the possibilities of what could come. Truly feels like the death of one of the old guard, a Usenet-of-the-2010s.
I even used it during pandemic times as a way to dance with strangers over video; putting on ridiculous outfits and playing disco were some of the moments from those dark times that I still cherish.
RIP Omegle! You will be missed, by me and many others.
I didn’t use Omegle much, but I actually met my now wife on there. We used the text only thing where a third person suggests a topic. Must’ve talked for a good 2 hours on there before exchanging informations, I shudder thinking that even the smallest glitch could have changed my life so drastically.
We met 11 years ago on the platform, a completely random fluke. And while I haven’t really used Omegle in a long time, it’s always had a soft spot in my heart due to how much it changed the trajectory of my life. It’s a sad day.
I miss the web where there were services actively trying to help you find new, interesting and weird things, not just the stuff that makes them the most money from ads. Feels like even the things that are supposed to be about "Discovery" are increasingly only showing you things from an ever shrinking walled garden. Despite there being exponentially more stuff and content on the web than say 20 years ago, it actually feels like a much smaller these days.
What was the relationship between StumbleUpon and Omegle. I haven't used Omegle but used StumbleUpon and was one unique place where you could discover hidden gems in the longtail.
Maybe we should create a DeFi version of this that doesn't have an owner and can't be sued. Things like Omegle should be likened to an empty grass field in the middle of town, with nobody responsible for what actually happens on it except the people who choose to be there.
> Where you looked at what people did with The Web 2.0 and only marveled at the possibilities of what could come. Truly feels like the death of one of the old guard, a Usenet-of-the-2010s.
This is funny to me, because I am old enough to remember when web 2.0 was new, and people were nostalgic for 'web 1.0'. (And, of course, it's turtles all the way down with nostalgia.)
Gives me chills, that was so heartfelt and raw. Hurt on all sides, but this is a bit like losing access to a public space because someone committed crimes there.
One of the greatest things Omegle enabled is this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhzHV9QD0Is (Harry Mack freestyling for random Omegle matches, it was a series of 90+ episodes and brought me and others so much joy during COVID)
Frank Tedesco, pianist / musician meets people on Omegle, takes song requests and plays them - and for ones he doesn't know, he listens once on his phone then plays them by ear.
Thanks so much for posting that. I hadn't ever come across Harry Mack. That guy is fantastic. And he gave so much happiness to those people he was rapping for! Just seeing all the delight on their faces gave me a tear in my eye. There's a lot of lonely people in the world, and for a moment, he improved their lives. We need better ways to connect; today I can VC with anyone in the world in a second, but we don't know how to connect like he does. Creators, work to make that kind of connection happen.
Great analogy. And.. thank you so much for posting this. HMack is a legend. Every time I listen to him I get stuck for hours. He is mindblowing constantly, pure love. It's worth the excursion every time, no one can amaze and impress like him every time. I've seen some Omegle videos with him before, but this one was really special. Super appreciate this.
I've been following Harry Mack for years now and he still never ceases to amaze me.
Someone who has worked incredibly hard at their craft in a very public manner.
The positive vibe he brings makes the internet a little bit better on every encounter.
I almost shed a tear when H.Mack got the opportunity to perform in front of his idols, Ice Cube, who said he was one of the best freestyle rappers he's seen, and had followed his career closely for years. A magical moment :-)
It's more like losing access to a bar that allowed random people to meet in private rooms, and didn't check they weren't giving access to minors, and didn't check inside the private rooms to prevent sexual abuse.
This brings back some amazing memories. If I remember correctly, the original inspiration for Omegle came from 4chan; or more precisely, a user thought of stretching the limits of "anonymous free speech" to realtime communications, and came up with the idea in late 2007. The PoC server for it was nothing more than "telnet to this IP" and it was sporadically advertised on 4chan for a short while.
Astonishingly, Google still remembers after 16 years: "forced_anon chat" (with the quotes) finds the very origin, if you want to go down that dark and probably-too-offensive-to-the-current-generation rabbithole.
God, they're complaining about newposters all the way back in 2007. Is the problem really Eternal September or is it just "kids these days"?
Also Leif K-Brooks is a thoughtful person, and it bleeds into his posts
I don't know why exactly I think a one on one chat system would be different from an imageboard. When one makes a post on an image or discussion board, I think one does take into account that his words are going to be judged by the whole community. Even he isn't worried about preserving some identity, he still identifies with those words and responds to the reactions they get, and I think that ultimately leads to self-censorship and conformity. When there's only one person passing judgment, it doesn't have nearly the same negative impact, and what's more you can hit F5 and dismiss the entire thing, whereas a post still remains.
That Google search you suggested appears (barring some UI thing I'm missing because I'm on Mobile) to only have two results, your comment and the 4chan archive. Is there a name for a google search with exactly two results? I know one with one single result is called a Googlewhack.
Any time I used it in the last five years I had to wade through about ten obvious bots advertising some pornsite or scam before I got to a real person.
Then when you do get to a real person, 90% of the time they said "M or F?" and if you said M they'd instantly leave
> But it became popular almost instantly after launch, and grew organically from there, reaching millions of daily users.
The law of big numbers dictate that if there’s even a tiny chance of a catastrophic event it has close to 100% probability of happening if n is just large enough (in the case of millions of daily users, probably multiple catastrophic events per day). This kind of asymmetrical risk is very hard to defend against no matter what you do.
The question in my mind is, 74 million monthly users have a good time (or not bad enough to not come back, whatever) vs the inevitable catastrophic event as you say, isn’t it well worth it to accept the risk and continue? The world couldn’t possibly function any other way
Maybe I’m wrong, but my impression is that it has been a living-dead service for many years already. I’m old enough to remember when it was actually exciting to use Omegle and chat roulette, but I’ve tried on and off for many years now and my impression is that, even at the slight chance that you got someone other than a naked horny weirdo, nobody was really paying attention to the conversation or interested in anything other than 15-second meaningless interaction. We certainly lost something nice here at some point but I’m not sure it happened today.
I've never used Omegle myself, but I've watched all of Harry Mack's Omegle Bars videos (freestyle rapping) and they are golden. Always fun to see him matched with some random kids and brighten their day:
I'm really sad about this. I know that a lot of really desperate people used the text chat feature when they needed someone to listen, and there's certainly a lot of people who are alive and happy today because they found someone to talk to there when they needed it. I can't deny that there have also been cases where people's lives have been made worse or ruined because of something that happened to them, but I think on the balance the site made the world a better place.
Every social app is a party, and every party peters out one way or another. Too few people? It's dead. Too many people? Chilling effects. No budget to police the place? It becomes a magnet for abuse / spam / porn / scams / human trafficking / you name it. This party lasted more than most, they should be proud to have had such a long run.
It's a shame. Even before Omegle, I remember when ICQ had a random match text chat feature. I had some great conversations on there. Briefly used Omegle for the same, but even years back when I tried it the signal to noise was a lot lower. I'd love it if someone found a way to do it sustainably.
Once upon a time, I was aimless and ended up on omegle after someone suggested it to me. For 8+ months I kinda lived on it, and watching countries come and go depending on timezones was quite funny, you could recognize speech/writing patterns in different cultures. You'd know in a minute if someone was chinese or colombian. A fun anthropological experiment.
Internet is becoming sadder and sadder. Mega corporations being mega corporations, ads, dark patterns, community-focused websites becoming mega corporations...
This hits me particularly hard. I met relationships, mentors, peers, pupils, friends of philosophy, fellow software developers, builders, dreamers, businessmen - and everything in between - from Omegle, all in different stages of my life.
I've messaged each and every one of them, just now, about the news - on the many platforms I added friends from Omegle with.
Conversations on Omegle changed my politics, it changed my beliefs, it changed my belief on systems of structure, changed my thoughts on strangers and humanity at large (as built by 8 billion of them).
It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestring operation. Platforms with an army of lawyers can surely fend lawsuits like this off without batting an eye. Apparently Omegle doesn't have an army of lawyers.
While I totally understand there's the potential for abuse, I don't think Omegle should be penalized for stuff like this. From my understanding, there's no addictive, profit-maximizing matchmaking or anything going on - it's just a service which lets two strangers talk to one another. Of course you will have bad actors target any platform, but for a lowkey site, it seems sad that they would need to shut down because of something like this.
Wonder how Chris Poole is doing. I loved using his site in the 2000s and have been amazed to see the creativity it has unleashed, some for good and some not so much.
[+] [-] ijustlovemath|2 years ago|reply
I even used it during pandemic times as a way to dance with strangers over video; putting on ridiculous outfits and playing disco were some of the moments from those dark times that I still cherish.
RIP Omegle! You will be missed, by me and many others.
[+] [-] justsid|2 years ago|reply
We met 11 years ago on the platform, a completely random fluke. And while I haven’t really used Omegle in a long time, it’s always had a soft spot in my heart due to how much it changed the trajectory of my life. It’s a sad day.
[+] [-] rfwhyte|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SnooSux|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simian1983|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wslh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|2 years ago|reply
This is funny to me, because I am old enough to remember when web 2.0 was new, and people were nostalgic for 'web 1.0'. (And, of course, it's turtles all the way down with nostalgia.)
[+] [-] onetokeoverthe|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Blahah|2 years ago|reply
One of the greatest things Omegle enabled is this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhzHV9QD0Is (Harry Mack freestyling for random Omegle matches, it was a series of 90+ episodes and brought me and others so much joy during COVID)
[+] [-] jodrellblank|2 years ago|reply
Frank Tedesco, pianist / musician meets people on Omegle, takes song requests and plays them - and for ones he doesn't know, he listens once on his phone then plays them by ear.
[+] [-] rnk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amplex1337|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpicolo|2 years ago|reply
Imagine they'll hop to a different platform.
[+] [-] _eric|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amanzi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donkeyd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soulofmischief|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simlevesque|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comprev|2 years ago|reply
Someone who has worked incredibly hard at their craft in a very public manner.
The positive vibe he brings makes the internet a little bit better on every encounter.
I almost shed a tear when H.Mack got the opportunity to perform in front of his idols, Ice Cube, who said he was one of the best freestyle rappers he's seen, and had followed his career closely for years. A magical moment :-)
[+] [-] hnrodey|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrustratedMonky|2 years ago|reply
With so many big names using it, and it is so popular.
Why was it a financial drain? Why can't it keep going?
Surely if was making enough money. .
[+] [-] Lolaccount|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] op00to|2 years ago|reply
It's more like losing access to a bar that allowed random people to meet in private rooms, and didn't check they weren't giving access to minors, and didn't check inside the private rooms to prevent sexual abuse.
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
Astonishingly, Google still remembers after 16 years: "forced_anon chat" (with the quotes) finds the very origin, if you want to go down that dark and probably-too-offensive-to-the-current-generation rabbithole.
[+] [-] kr0bat|2 years ago|reply
Also Leif K-Brooks is a thoughtful person, and it bleeds into his posts
[+] [-] permo-w|2 years ago|reply
4chan offensiveness isn't so much a generational thing as it is a personality thing
[+] [-] ryzvonusef|2 years ago|reply
archive link for those who don't want to google
[+] [-] _shantaram|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ratg13|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aicy|2 years ago|reply
Then when you do get to a real person, 90% of the time they said "M or F?" and if you said M they'd instantly leave
[+] [-] melvinmelih|2 years ago|reply
The law of big numbers dictate that if there’s even a tiny chance of a catastrophic event it has close to 100% probability of happening if n is just large enough (in the case of millions of daily users, probably multiple catastrophic events per day). This kind of asymmetrical risk is very hard to defend against no matter what you do.
[+] [-] adamomada|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazide|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] low_tech_love|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cristoperb|2 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijVGIcVRIbk
[+] [-] LarsAlereon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yafbum|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sizzle|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thot_experiment|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unsupp0rted|2 years ago|reply
Have people always thought this (e.g. "the youth of today are lazy") or is it measurably true?
I feel like it's obviously true.
[+] [-] tempestn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbix77|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HaZeust|2 years ago|reply
I've messaged each and every one of them, just now, about the news - on the many platforms I added friends from Omegle with.
Conversations on Omegle changed my politics, it changed my beliefs, it changed my belief on systems of structure, changed my thoughts on strangers and humanity at large (as built by 8 billion of them).
Tragic. Thank you, Leif.
[+] [-] PessimalDecimal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johntiger1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woleium|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] empathy_m|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackcosgrove|2 years ago|reply
The site has only been featured here twice, for its birth and death.