I learned to type in Junior High School in the nineties, and it is extremely difficult to leave a single space after a period. Like that, it took a huge effort for me to break conditioning.
Whenever I type, be it on my phone or on a computer, I always use double spaces after a period. Like you, I'm just used to it and un-learning it is hard!
This was in the US? As someone who didn't learn that rule, I've always found it very strange and, frankly, ugly.
From the article:
> There was just one space width available in the typewriter, so words and sentences were separated by the same distance. The double space was used to differentiate sentences and improve the readability of the text.
I would dispute this. Sentences are separated by a period as well as a single space character, and that's not the same distance as just a single space because the period doesn't have the same visual weight as a word character. A ". " still looks 'wider' than a " ", even if it technically isn't!
The extra space produced a visually "extra" pause.
Just as these blank lines produce an even greater separation. It's about emphasis, and it's going away (IMO) because it's a nicety, not an obligatory part of clarity and communication. Also, because early editing software wasn't complex enough to correctly distinguish between a sentence end and "Dr. Edward Jones". [EDIT: the gd HN editor removed my extra space!!!]
I was around for the leap from BBS systems to Fidonet; the bad old days when there were no such thing as graphics. I can absolutely sympathize with what's being said here, and for me, there are two primary reasons why I pine for the elder days. The systems then required some effort to gain access to which kept some of the signal to noise loss down (if you know the difference between CB radio and Ham radio, you know what I'm saying), and while commercialism's always been a part of these systems, more value was placed on content than advertising.
You and me both, and that became a cycle with each new generation of technology. I remember that FidoNet (and Usenet, for that matter) had a lot of that ham radio ethos, with commercial messages most unwelcome. But once the internet got too big, Usenet drowned in spam. It was too easy to crapflood newsgroups into oblivion, and once the politicians started grandstanding, ISPs wasted no time nuking their NNTP servers.
