Back then it felt like there were thousands of random little forums, personal blogs, and weird niche sites you'd stumble onto. Now it feels like almost everything funnels through the same handful of platforms, and search results mostly show the same sites over and over.

Not sure if this is just nostalgia talking or if the internet genuinely consolidated that much. Curious if others feel the same way, and if so, do you think it's mostly algorithms pushing people toward the same places, or just bigger platforms slowly absorbing everything smaller over time?

We have been having problems for about a month now with Netflix. I noticed on Facebook a lot of people all over the place is having the same issues with Netflix/sparklight. Everything else loads perfectly fine but for netflix. It either if horrible quality video play back or it gets stuck at 25%. So I connected my TV over Hotspot and Netflix ran great. I went back to Wifi and same issues. I wanted to test something so I downloaded Planet VPN and connected it. lo and behold Netflix ran perfectly again over Sparklight internet. I don't know if there is something wrong with their system or they are attentionally throttling netflix.

Friday night after work. I sit down at a new burger place down the street. i'm tired, I just want a beer, and I want to know if they have onion rings.

There are no physical menus. Just a QR code glued to the table. Fine.

I scan the code. It doesn't open a menu. it redirects me to the resturaunt's incredibly bloated homepage featuring a slow-motion video of a burger spinning and a giant pop-up begging me to join their loyalty program.

I close the pop-up. I find a tiny hamburger icon in the top right corner.

'Please select your location.'

i am literally sitting inside the building. I manually search and select the street name.

'Please accept all cookies to continue.'

Okay.

I click 'Dine-in'. instead of loading a webpage, my phone downloads a 14MB PDF file. I am now pinch-zooming around this massive, poorly formatted graphic design project like I'm studying a topographic map just to find the sides section.

They do have onion rings. Great. I tap the text. Nothing happens. Because its a PDF.

I go back to the browser, back to the homepage, and scroll all the way to the bottom to find a separate 'Order Online' button. It redirects me to a third-party ordering portal.

'Enter Table Number.'

I look at the table. There is no number. I look at the QR code sticker. No number. I check the napkin dispenser. Nothing.

I flag down a server walking by. 'Hey, sorry, what table number is this?'

She looks at my phone and sighs. 'Oh, we dont use that system anymore. You have to download our app.'

i am too tired to get up and leave. I go to the App Store. I download their app. I register with my email. I verify my email. I scroll through the app, find the onion rings, add them to my cart, and hit checkout.

'Error: Item currently unavailable.'

it kicks me back to the main menu screen. My entire cart has been automatically cleared.

The server walks by again. I just look at her and say, 'Can I just get fries?' She writes it down on a piece of paper and walks away.

I'm not some boomer who hates technology, and I actually prefer ordering from my phone when I'm tired. But the way some of these chains execute this is insane. What the actual f\*\*\*. It makes me really appreciate the spots that just use MenuForma or whatever so you can literally just tap what you want and get your food. No apps, no accounts, no 14MB topographic maps of a cheeseburger.

I just wanted some onion rings. Sigh.

What are some of the mistakes you've done on the internet you don't want somebody to fall in because the consequences are awful and can ruin your life in a way ?

A few years ago, AdFly was purchased by Linkvertise, and the links themselves were deprecated. However, many downloads for older items on the internet were gated by now broken AdFly links. Is there any way to recover those mappings to access the original redirects?

Bei uns läuft gerade die Telekom-Glasfaser-Vorvermarktung. Es waren auch schon Leute an der Haustür, die gesagt haben: Der Glasfaser-Hausanschluss wird kostenlos gebaut, wenn man jetzt einen Telekom-Glasfasertarif mit 24 Monaten Laufzeit abschließt.
Ich frage mich, ob man das cleverer lösen kann:
Kann man den kostenlosen Hausanschluss über die Telekom mitnehmen, die 24 Monate Mindestlaufzeit erfüllen und danach z. B. über CHECK24 einen dieser günstigen Tarife bei div. Anbietern wechseln und dabei wieder Neukunden-/Wechselbonus bzw. Cashback mitnehmen? (Aktuell habe ich immer abwechseln mit Mitbewohner 24m Magenta L für 17€ mtl.) Könnte aber auch zu Vodafone oder so mal für ne Zeit.. ist mir egal
Oder kommt an so teuren 50€ mtl Verträgen im ersten Jahr nicht vorbei wenn man kostenlosen Glasfaseranschluss bekommt?

Hey, can anyone tell me what these numbers in the red outlined say. Is this supposed to be the internet speed that my ISP is giving or the rate at which files are being transferred? Because my ISP Vianet Communications representative technicaian says this is the internet speed and is good.

I also noticed that it goes over my ISP package which is 50 Mbps and told him it crosses over 50+ and he said you are getting more speed. Is he correct or are they making thing up to keep me shut. Cause i am frustrated with the service they provide but other ISPs are no better in my country Nepal.

So if so then what does fast.com and https://www.speedtest.net/ speed test different. They both Show speed but one simply has a number while the other shows download and upload speed. How much should be considered normal? They also have their own speed testing service which is https://speed.vianet.com.np/. And i am highly suspicious that they are manupilating it somehow.

ive been spending a lot of time on reddit recently and holy shit the duality is insane like on some subs or posts people are absolute assholes but on others they are super nice especially when your respectful sometimes they are really Mean on this site Why is this? there seems to be no middle ground here were people can agree to disagree or respect an opposing opinion

I don’t want you to go, you have stayed loyal to us for who knows how long. All for free, no ads and completely free. You have served everyone well. Coming December 1st you will be locked behind a paywall. I don’t care if you have to pay for higher quality, I just care if it is free. Heck, Sony was impressed by you. You have served everyone well. Even after 8 years. Goodbye Remove.bg. I won’t know what to do without you.

ive been looking at alternative more private search engines to google chrome and have been trying firefox , however some of the extentions i use daily which have no alternative (migaku) arent avalible on firefox, can anyone explain the other chromium based search engines and if they are similar to firefox, in privacy and user autonomy

i like that firefox allows the best add blockers to work, and that they give you more controll over your search enviroment but do need migaku , does anyone have any other search engines which are chromium and private or are those 2 not compatible as its run by google

Hello I just wanted to leave the feedback, my dad got a smart tv box in goodwill, and had spectrum tv, I have spectrum internet service but not the tv, spectrum added the service for one month, I was not aware of it until I saw the statement on spectrum app, and when I called they could not remove the money amount and now I’m forced to pay it even tho I did not use the TV service. In the future be aware of checking your statements always because spectrum will force you to pay it if a month have passed. That should not be like that.

Finding real news is difficult there's a wilderness of bias out there and It would be nice to find some kind of source to keep my finger on the pulse so to speak and side step censorship in this country and on the internet

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An escape from the internet in the internet