Has The Internet Killed The Scene?

Written by Majic Mushroom

A question I often ask myself, being a schizophrenic (joke!!)...

I certainly think it has stolen part of the scene spirit.

I started off in the scene mailtrading, so I can pretty much say I know the situation quite well.

The Internet has its advantages, and I hate to admit it, but it also has its disadvantages. Some of these contra each other too.

Advantages:

(1) Free or Local Call access.
(2) FTP sites full of latest warez/demos.
(3) Email to keep in touch.
(4) IRC.

Sure... This is great! You can just click and yahoo! The latest warez are being transferred to you straight away! You don't have to upload first neither! Wahoo! Much better than BBS's!

Consider for one second the above. Sounds great, doesn't it? Instant access to all the latest warez! As great as it sounds, as lovely as it is to get your hands on all this lovely stuff, do you not feel a lack of scene spirit? I have to admit, I do.

As I said, I mail traded for 5 years (Dec 89 - Dec 94), and I found it a brilliant feeling to get up in the morning, and see 10 packages come through the letterbox. Even better was not knowing what was on the disks until they were put into the Amiga and booted up! It was brilliant! With the net, you know exactly what you are getting, it kinda spoils the fun a little. It also gave the smaller groups a chance as you would look at the contents of the disk, whereras you would probably skip a production by an unknown group on the net.

BBS's also had a good feeling about them. Sure, you had to upload to download, that was what "trading" was about. Even if you had a disabled ratio on a BBS, you still wanted to upload to it, and you wanted everything that was new, regardless of who it was by.

Email... Now, this is great. It certainly helps me manage Tesko better. I still ring most the members of the group, but it certainly makes my job easier. I can't see anything wrong with Email! :)

IRC - Dont get me wrong, I love IRC. But I also think it makes people lazy. I can go on the net, go into #ukscene and see the same people all the time. Now, this is nice, cos its good to talk with friends, but surely, while they are on IRC, they aren't coding, drawing or tracking... They are just talking! To me, I think this is one of the main reasons why there are not as many releases anymore, because people are spending all their time on IRC, and maybe the net in general.

Of course, its up to those concerned what they do, but if they want the scene to continue, its up to them to pull their fingers out!!

Anway, that's enough from me. These are simply my opinions, not intended to offend anyone. I'd be interested to hear your comments though.

- Majic Mushroom / Tesko