My Online History

(or How I Ended Up In MINDS)

Yes. I am ancient. How many of you remember Compuserve? That was the first online service I joined. I accessed it with a 300 baud modem with an acoustic coupler from my Atari computer.

Then the Internet became available to computer geeks like myself. News Groups, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, and FTP were the fare of the day. The most popular browser of the day was Mosaic. I still remember with wonder how I could be accessing a server in Australia and then follow a link to somewhere in Europe. It was the age of innocence on the Internet. You got smacked down hard if you tried anything remotely commercial on the Internet. Streaming video was but a dream.

Then AOL (independent of the Internet at first) came along and took over the world. Of course, I joined AOL. At around the same time, Netscape took over the world as the most popular browser. I think by this time I had upgraded my Internet connection to ISDN which meant I was surfing the Web speedily. The Internet soon swallowed up AOL.

Facebook came out of nowhere to dominate the world to this day. I joined early on and dropped it many years ago over privacy concerns. Today, I would still drop it over privacy concerns and censorship concerns. By this time, Microsoft's Internet Explorer swept away Netscape. Microsoft accomplished this utilizing its operating system monopoly.

When Google+ was launched, I was among the first to join. I was a very active user until recently when I noticed that my posts were being "hidden," another form of censorship. I have stopped using Google+. Through the years, I have lost my trust of Google. I stopped using most of Google's services (search, maps, etc.) through the years.

It took me awhile to convince myself to start using Twitter, but I finally joined it. I dropped it last year over censorship concerns. The banning of Milo was the last straw for me. I joined Gab as an alternative, but it hasn't yet achieved critical mass. I like GAB because it supports the freedom of speech and expression.

Which brings me to MINDS. I heard about MINDS a couple of weeks ago and I decided to explore it and join it. What attracts me most about MINDS is its support of the freedom of speech and expression. I believe that out of all the other new Social Media being started, MINDS has the best potential for reaching critical mass.

The human being is a social animal. It needs to belong and explore. There are very interesting individuals here in MINDS who have a lot to offer. I can't wait to explore their MINDS.