The Internet in 1999 was not good at all. Browsers barely worked, computers crashed constantly, the ability to actually search for useful things was limited, and many things we take for granted as being online (news, people, documentation) were not.

The mid-to-late 2000s are perhaps closer to what the author is looking for.

It was FUN though.

> Browsers barely worked

They worked pretty well actually, AFAICR. Internationalation was a bit sketchy in some cases though.

> computers crashed constantly

You did need to be careful with Windows 98, for sure, but it wasn't that bad. Also, if you put in some elbow grease you could install Linux, which didn't crash (but had limited support for peripherals and for the latest graphics cards, and almost no games).

> the ability to actually search for useful things was limited

It is arguably more limited now than it was then, since commercial search engines did not manipulate the results as much.

I dunno, they'll let anybody get on the Internet and start a podcast.

I will bring this up at the next meeting of the secret cryptographer cabal where we decide what information to reveal to non-cryptographers.

Except for the part where it's constantly having quality and reliability issues, even independent of the server-side infrastructure (OOMs on long running tasks, etc).

As opposed to Pip, which is obviously free and sustainable forever.

And takes a lot closer to "forever" to download all of your dependencies

The person with the most HN karma of anyone on this site, currently thinks djb's actions are wrong.

VCs have put in $120 million, so someone thinks that it's worth something.

RMS has, at minimum, showed that he swayed by parrots, spider plants, and free plane tickets and guest lodgings.

> SAML is arguably the worst cryptographic standard ever created

The PGP packet has entered the chat.

GOT ‘EM