I try exploring the 'alt-internet' or indyweb or whatever we call it from time to time. I've messed around on Mastodon instances, but it never really clicked with me. I never really used Twitter though, either, so not surprised. I did enjoy old Instagram around the time stories came out because it was just my friends sharing less-polished pictures of what they were doing, so I thought maybe I would enjoy Pixelfed. I played with Scuttlebutt for a while and found it the most fun, just a pain in the ass to use.<p>However, they all have a similar problem. There's almost no one except bored tech people on them. Don't get me wrong, I think retro computing is cool, and I like seeing people's DIY hardware creations occasionally, but it's only a small niche. The corner shop is boring if it's almost always empty, and the only people that ever show up are other corner shop proprietors or corner shop enthusiasts. At the same time I'm aware that attracting the rhetorical racist uncle from Facebook over to your Mastodon instance is not the goal, and it wouldn't make it better to have wider appeal.<p>There are very few non-tech-specific old web holdouts that I know of. One of my favorites is Crazy Guy on a Bike [1]. It's a special purpose site, forum, blogging platform, etc. specifically for bike touring, all run on donations by one crazy guy writing Perl like it's 1998. It's been around for over 20 years, and as cool as it is, it's also fixed scene that isn't growing or attracting new members. As people move on and donations dry up I'm sure it'll disappear.<p>I don't want it to be so, but I feel like whether you're at the mall or the corner store, the internet is just a boring place now, and yet I spend more time with it than almost anything else. Probably says more about my age and the fact that AIM chat and quirky HTML sites were a part of my childhood than anything else.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/</a>