I saw a post on r/privacy from the founder, and it caught my attention. What do you guys think of it?
I remember when I first heard about it around 2000/2001. Interesting idea of distributed hosting of all material, but at the same time seemed like something you really needed to go all-in on to get any benefit from it.
Coverage at the time was mostly “you’ll never know what horrible things you’re hosting on your own machine.”
Yeah, I used to be on freenet for some time. I used it to discover movies, and I even downloaded some from it. It caught my attention because the whole idea of having a decentralized internet, where parts of data are spread across computers across the different parts of the world sounds really cool to me. It does have some problems tho.
Freenet was my first and only taste of the “deep web.” I was honestly a bit afraid to explore it. Not because it is illegal or anything, but because I am always afraid of stumbling into something heinous and abominable.
I do think there is something wildly intriguing about exploring a space outside of mainstream protocals, like walking into a secret library, or an outsider art gallery. Maybe I will discover some revelation provided by a mysterious benefactor unconcerned with broadcasting to the masses.
Or just whatever the lame opposite of that is.
Oh you pulled the words right out of my mouth. I’m both scared and fascinated with obscure corners of the internet. Its like finding a little house in a forest.
I am old enough to had accessed the internet right as it was becoming mainstream so it was that “old web” people are nostalgic for, yet young enough that I did not understand some of the fucked up shit I saw. I have vague memories of stuff that I frankly will never mention, as well as all the porn my older brother looked at because he was too stupid to clear his browsing history.
Still, I think these things are worth exploring. This fear we have I feel is a reason why large companies were quickly able to take control. People wanted a safe space, a sanitized internet. Now we talk about the good old days of the web like it doesn’t exist anymore.
It does, we just don’t know how to find them anymore, and most people want instant gratification instead of taking the time to explore lovingly crafted websites that often were like mazes and held secrets waiting to be discovered. It is art.
