I feel old...
**The Evolution of the Internet: A Nostalgic Look Back**
In the early days of the internet, loading a web page took seconds to load and minutes to complete. Videos were hardly a thought, but that was the limitation of the technology back then. Things were way simpler, which set the focus for what people actually did online.
Communication was a huge selling point, especially thanks to the advent of chat rooms, email, and instant messaging. AOL Mail, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or AIM for short, was huge for simple text coms between friends and family. Beyond that, forums and IRC on the general internet helped cultivate communities of people with similar interests.
The world might have been huge, but the internet made it easy to connect with people from all over. This was a big deal considering international phone calls were expensive, and mail would take forever.
**The Mail**
Let's talk about the mail. Can we talk about the mail? Beyond that, just being able to have information on anything and everything right at your fingertips was nothing short of revolutionary.
However, what kids won't ever get is how it monopolized your phone line. Pick up the phone while a computer is online, and you'll hear that noise - "You haven't heard that noise?" You couldn't make calls; you couldn't receive them. This wouldn't be a problem if we didn't rely on our house phone so much back in the day.
My parents specifically had a routine of catching up with our relatives over the phone. Remember, at this point in time, cell phones were still out of reach for people. This is why the internet was more of a destination you planned to visit compared to how convenient and accessible everything is now in our current age of easy access and relatively affordable streaming services.
**Kids These Days**
Kids these days don't have to pirate as much as they used to. They'll certainly share a password here and Discord stream Netflix there, but things aren't as crazy as they once were. I certainly wouldn't condone piracy here on Dengue Channel subscribe, but also let's be real; we've all done it.
When I was in Middle School, Spotify and Apple Music didn't exist yet. iTunes was taking the world by storm alongside the mass popularity of the iPod and other MP3 players as a 90s kid that grew up with the internet without disposable income during Middle School, I needed to get my music and movies somehow.
Luckily, there were peer-to-peer file sharing programs that helped me build my collection of music that I could access on demand. One of the apps people used was Napster, which was a little after my time but I used the heck out of Kazaa and especially LimeWire.
**The Risks**
These apps popularized the idea of illegal downloads; actually, users would upload all sorts of copyrighted music and videos legally for people to enjoy for free. It's a simple thought, but I don't think kids these days can truly grasp the gamble involved in searching for this stuff.
Quality was often hit or miss, and you never really knew what you were getting. Sometimes a song would be high quality ripped right off a CD, and other times it would be a scuffed remix off the radio. Video was an even bigger gamble; our dial-up connections meant slow inconsistent download speeds that would take a few days for a video to finish.
**The Consequences**
One study found that 30% of media observed contained malware, which is probably why our family computers struggled every single week. It was awful but did it really stop us? At its peak, LimeWire attracted 50 million monthly users, which understandably the record companies hate.
Rather famously, the Recording Industry Association of America sued LimeWire for $72 trillion dollars (trillion with the T). That was more than the whole entire world's GDP back at the time of the lawsuit in 2010.
While today's streaming platforms are far from perfect, I'd say that we're in a much better place now. I don't want to go back to the stone ages of slow internet, virus-filled music files, and hot coffee mods. But I can certainly appreciate what we have today - a knowing how hard things were before.
Thanks for watching this video on Dengue Channel!