I will never understand why people are nostalgic for dial-up internet.
By @jettok2 · Nostalgia
My friend group was talking about stuff we missed from the 90s/2000s, and a few of them were romanticizing the sound of a dial-up modem. They're acting like the agonizingly slow pace was some charming, wholesome experience.
The full story
I feel like I'm losing my mind listening to my friends talk about the 'good old days' of the early internet. We're all in our mid-30s, so we were the prime generation for the transition from dial-up to broadband. They were going on and on about the iconic 'handshake' sound of the modem connecting, the excitement of finally getting online, and how it felt like a bigger 'event' back then. One of my friends literally said, 'It forced you to be patient and appreciate the connection when you got it.' Am I the only one who remembers this for what it actually was? It was awful. You'd tie up the phone line so nobody could make a call. If your mom picked up the phone in the other room, your download of a single MP3 from Napster that had been running for 45 minutes would immediately fail. Pictures loaded one agonizing pixel-line at a time. You'd click a link and go make a sandwich while you waited for the page to maybe load. They're talking about it like it was some cozy, vintage ritual. I remember it as pure, unfiltered frustration. The move to broadband was one of the single greatest quality-of-life improvements of my entire adolescence. The idea that anyone would look back on the dial-up era with fondness is completely insane to me. It's like being nostalgic for black-and-white TV or cars without air conditioning. The new thing is just objectively, unequivocally better in every conceivable way. They all think I'm being a joyless hater, but I think they have some kind of collective amnesia.
How people voted
- Facts — 32% (72 votes)
- Depends — 39% (90 votes)
- No Way — 29% (66 votes)
Readers are split: “Depends” leads with 39% — 228 votes and 4 comments so far.
What people are saying
@judekk — Absolutely agree. People forget the sheer RAGE of being kicked offline because someone picked up the phone.
@alsosame — I get what they mean, it was a whole ritual. Waiting for a single song to download was a test of character.
@xenatbh — nah the sound is iconic. it was an event. you're just a hater.
@milomaybe — its like being nostalgic for aol free trial cds lmao
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