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1. 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Oct-2018 16:36:33 EDT 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account

   @tiphra I don't think using screen names was universal. On Usenet newsgroups, people mostly used their real names. I also suspect that most early academic Internet users would've used some version of their real name.

   The tradition of using screen names actually comes from hacker culture. Before the Internet, most hackers would hang out on bulletin board systems, and even there, some systems expected a first name and a last name.

   1. 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Oct-2018 16:38:31 EDT 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account

      in reply to

      @tiphra And I think that, as the Internet saw wider usage, the hackers who first made up the majority of the Internet were overwhelmed by the mainstream users who joined later on, in vast numbers.

      I'd say that screen names still exist in several contexts. Instagram has them, and so does Snapchat, I believe, together with Twitter. It doesn't seem to have gone out of fashion.

      Facebook wants your real name because they are data vampires.