internet decline

A 1993 episode of The Computer Chronicles on the early Internet, with guests including Howard Rheingold discussing online community. It is a window into how the internet was seen and what hardware was in use at the time.

The full documentary 'The Internet's Own Boy' about programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, with interviews with family, friends and internet figures. It covers his work on access to information and the legal case preceding his death.

A short documentary on the 2015 Yale Halloween costume controversy and the confrontation with Nicholas Christakis. Filmmaker Rob Montz investigates campus free speech and the state of the university afterward.

A Vox report on El Paquete Semanal, the weekly offline bundle of shows, music and news that is smuggled and sold in Cuba. It shows how people get media without internet access.

Neil Halloran's animated, data-driven documentary visualizes the human cost of World War II and compares it with other wars and the trend toward fewer war deaths in recent decades.

A short documentary about Eric Maundu's Arduino-controlled aquaponics setup in West Oakland, where contaminated soil rules out ordinary farming. Fish and circulating water grow plants without soil.

TechAltar's history of Philips, once Europe's largest tech company and a world leader in lighting, radio and physical media. It traces how the company sold off or spun out its businesses, until little remains but the licensed name.

Veritasium tells the story of the XZ backdoor, how a patient attacker became maintainer and nearly compromised SSH on Linux systems. It also covers free software history and how encryption in SSH works.

Cloth Map documents Havana's SNET, a community-built private network that Cubans created because internet prices were high. It is used for gaming and sharing.

Internet Historian tells the story of No Man's Sky, from its over-hyped and badly received launch to years of updates by Hello Games that redeemed the game. It is a long, comedic mini-documentary.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day tries to manufacture a grill scrubber entirely in the United States. Along the way he runs into missing supply chains, tooling and institutional manufacturing knowledge.

Jason Scott's multi-episode documentary on the bulletin board system scene of the 1980s and 1990s, built from over 200 interviews. It captures how hobbyists ran dial-up systems before the internet went mainstream.

A feature-length documentary on how the City of London and Britain's overseas territories built a global web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions after the empire declined. It traces how this network captured and hid wealth from around the world.

Fredrik Knudsen's 86-minute documentary on Terry A. Davis, creator of TempleOS, tracing his work, his schizophrenia and his decline. It is a chronological video essay built on his public posts and videos.

A KQED Truly CA documentary narrated by John Waters about the Salton Sea, a once-glamorous California vacation spot now home to an eccentric community. It covers the area's economic, political and environmental problems and features Salvation Mountain.

In an Ars Technica War Stories episode, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner describes how he made the game on the Apple II, fighting hardware memory limits and the platform's decline. It covers the rotoscoped animation and the engineering tricks involved.

A 1996 documentary on the twentieth-century American decline of public transport and the role of car companies and the highway lobby in it. It is best known for its account of GM's streetcar buyouts.

A Bloomberg documentary on how Boeing's failures around the 737 Max crashes followed a shift in company culture and cost-cutting. It covers the grounding, the stock drop and questions about the company's future.

A short documentary by Christopher Rufo presenting a conservative account of homelessness, addiction and public disorder in San Francisco.