[cutthegrass2]

I've been thinking about this too, perhaps it's my age (43) and the fact I vividly remember earlier times.

If I were to pick an inflection point, a point at which the internet started going to shit, i'd say it was around 07/08 with the birth of the iPhone and Appstore. That's when "pay to publish" really started to take off.

[aleph_minus_one]

> If I were to pick an inflection point, a point at which the internet started going to shit, i'd say it was around 07/08 with the birth of the iPhone and Appstore. That's when "pay to publish" really started to take off.

That's very plausible.

I additionally want to add that before the iPhone, having a locked-down device where the vendor decides which app(lication)s you are allowed to install caused huge outcries and shitstorms.

Example: Microsoft's initiatives for "Next-Generation Secure Computing Base" (formerly Palladium) [1] and attempting to enforce a TPM on computers (keyword: trusted computing).

When the iPhone came out, this all suddenly became perfectly accepted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computi...

[user3939382]

I don’t know if Palm was technically a walled garden, I’m guessing you could load from wherever, but practically it was and I don’t think anyone had a problem with it. Not sure if it’s a counterpoint but something to consider.

[marklubi]

I'm 45 and have been in the industry for more than 25 years. I think it was closer to 2010/11 when things went sideways.

The birth of the iPhone changed a lot of things, but it took a few years to reach critical mass.

[Clubber]

For me it was around this time, but 2013 when the Snowden revelations came out. The internet became creepy because of all the spying and collection. It was a distinct change in my attitude I remember distinctly.

[Foobar8568]

For me, it was the buy out of geocities by Yahoo was the inflexion point with a sure and slow demise. Death of ezboard was also a pain.

So corporate profit over users.

Another acceleration was google turning to shit as well.

[BoingBoomTschak]

Some people pointed to 2007 for lots of simultaneous reasons:

http://0x0.st/Xx1H.png

[DanielleMolloy]

Not sure how it was 2007, but tumblr feels like relief nowadays because it still has some glimpses of that old internet. You can customize a tumblr down to the HTML, including JavaScript.

Not using the social parts (likes) etc. though. I'm using it as a way to share photos and what I'm up to with family without forced login. Like a homepage basically. It is not trying to distract visitors with pointing to other blogs either.

[TheAceOfHearts]

This is interesting to me because I vividly remember the Summer of 2006 as being one of the most fun times I had on the Internet. I wasn't aware of these details but probably would've also said around 2007 or 2008 there was a vibe shift.

[Izkata]

One of the possible names for Gen Z that was thrown around about a decade ago was "iGen", a reference to the iPhone and noticing there was a cultural shift in those that came of age on/after 2008.