I'll admit I don't have an account at cyberspace.online so this is mostly just a post to bring it to other people's attention who might be interested.

Cyberspace.online is a social network that intentionally attempts to re-create the feel of the "old" internet. It basically behaves like Twitter except It doesn't support video and only allows for monochrome images. Instead of those fancy bells and whistles, it has an interface you can run in a terminal. It also has a Commodore 64 theme and a VT320 theme. So that's the audience they're shooting for. This is an anti-AI, anti-algorithm social network from the past. They also have a chat room feature that mimics IRC.

Given the restrictions they're imposing on themselves, I think it's obvious what type of audience they're trying to attract; the Gen X and elder Millennials who remember this version of the internet. And yet, they're also working on an interactive 3d world called The Grid, which is entirely made up of wireframes. So they aren't just trying to mimic the internet of the 90s, they're trying to mimic a cyberpunk internet of the 90s.

Overall, I think this is an interesting concept. It has been online for 7 months and so far has attracted 11,000 users. For a social network, that's incredibly small. But for a hobby project, this seems like a massive success. And I'm curious to see what The Grid looks like when they're done.

With all that said, this feels like Mastodon but with fewer features. It isn't open source, it isn't federated, it isn't encrypted. If you want a cyberpunk version of Mastodon, you could just go with a cyberpunk-themed instance like https://corteximplant.com/ and keep all its modern features and larger user-base. Of course, this project is for the people who actively don't want that, and I figured there might be some Lemmy users here who agree.

https://cyberspace.online/