Post #1345637

2025-08-11 00:54 UTC

I realized why us millennials miss the technology of the 2000s and early 2010s so much. This was the period when everything was already mature and reliable (operating systems had memory protection and preemptive multitasking!) but user respect was still very much the default. Dark patterns were rare — the only one I remember was some installers trying to sneak the Yandex IE toolbar. The only modal popups there were on websites, were ads on the shady ones.

Replies (3)

@rl_dane@polymaths.social 2025-08-11 05:34

@grishka GenXer, here. Being older, I recall that era with a great deal of clarity and... Yep, it was perfect. 2010 was the high point, 2015 was the beginning of the end, and of course, 2020 is when the poop started really flowing downhill.

Open ##2119761
@a1ba@suya.place 2025-08-11 08:17

@grishka I kinda remember that everything tried to install it's own toolbar though. Some even tried to install custom firefox forks, proudly called "new" browsers.

Open ##2119772
@jollysea@chaos.social 2025-08-11 08:35

@grishka I have a very nostalgic view of that time period, too, but there were a lot of dark patterns and shady technologies on the web already. Pop-up ads, flash ads (playing sound without asking), etc. A tech-savy user could avoid most of these, but if I think of how the browers of my parents looked when they finally asked for help …

Open ##2119774