cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1458116
I know at this point a lot of it is related to money, but there was a transitional time that led to this point that I’m still confused by.
What details changed about online spaces that made many folks more comfortable sharing so much under their real names between the “Be careful!” times to where we are now?
I mostly avoided it so my memory may be off here, but weren’t there still a fair number of folks that posted to MySpace using parts of their real name and, imo slightly worse (in terms of privacy), using photos of themselves as profile pics? Real names are one thing but photos of yourself are just a dead giveaway.
Neither is very useful until you can correlate it with something else. Like, it takes a lot more effort to find someone in meatspace than in a database. Though, the number of databases with your face in them is a number that goes up faster every year.
That’s true, although as I recall there was often enough additional info even back then that someone determined enough could become a concern.
You aren’t wrong. There were also plenty of software-related mailing lists back in the day where folks used their real names regularly. And even if someone did go by a handle, their real name was often known anyway.
Yeah. and there were a lot of tech type folk that had a blog on domains that required ‘real names’ and more, that was quite often public.