what do you miss about the early internet?

^^^same omfg!! i lived on forums XDD

i also miss being able to stumble across weird websites, like obscure pokemon fan websites and blogs that i was way too young to be on unsupervised. everything was just less centralized around these corporate giants, and even now i feel like earnest early internet culture is probably gone for good, which is both good and bad considering how awful ppl could be back then (flashbacks to being sent gore vids and being sexually harassed online at 13,, yikesss).

i feel like the solution isnt to revive the old internet necessarily, but to take notes on what worked and carry that into the present. ppl are too high-strung nowadays, but at least they care when someone does smthn unacceptable. its a double edged sword i think. ppl will denounce others on grounds of being cringe or smthn they said like a decade ago, but they will also rightfully call out creeps and bigots. 

so yeah in conclusion everyone be more open-minded and nicer to each other, stay away from big social media corporations, thx <333 or dont, whatever XD

FORUMS. Those were literally my life and SO fun 

the customizability mainly, but also the lack of an algorithm pushing you to content you might like. its so much more fun to explore the internet and bounce from site to site through clicking links that go to another website and or webring!

Oh, and (at least as far as I could tell) there were no AI / bot generated websites, it was all content made because someone wanted to put that content out there, not because something guessed that it might get lots of hits.  Check out the Dead Internet Theory if you've not come across it already.

Search engines which actually helped you find what you were looking for.  Finding random sites people had made about their hobbies.  It's difficult to think back, but I'd guess most of my Internet Exploder windows (yes windows, not tabs) were for different sites, compared to these days where a large portion of my browser tabs are for the same few websites.  Going on-line to do something specific for an hour or so then disconnecting, going out to play and leaving it all behind.  The anticipation of connecting while the modem made its screeching sounds.  Definitely the lack of tracking and the greater feeling of anonymity.

mostly just how small, cozy, and low-stakes everything felt. communities were more segregated, but it was a good thing because there was a place for everyone, you just had to look. there were tons of small communities dedicated to more esoteric/specific subjects, but they also never quite felt dead, either.

nowadays i'm always afraid that one thing i post might start some giant argument or something. usually i just get ignored a lot, which is fine, but it used to be easier to find people i shared interests with online...

The old memes.

Companies not tracking my every mouse click

Just how un-monetized everything was, nowadays every website tries to get anything out of you and sell it. The internet used to be a place of knowledge, fun and connection, now it's the same 10 websites that all have subscription plans, ads, free trials, tracking, Algorithms, ect... I feel like a lot of potentially great things are hidden behind the mountains and mountains of mindless content, or simply aren't "profitable" enough for them to survive on websites.

Being able to find people's personal home pages in search engines and not just business websites trying to sell you something.

ill go first as someone who only experienced the tailend of it (2003) i miss flash games, ourworld, the old youtube layout, not having my search bar flooded with shein and temu… i miss when moshi monsters was still active and very much alive! i miss writing on wattpad before they introduced paying premium. i miss collecting webkinz and being excited to go home and log on with my friends! i miss when creepypasta was still popular.

Barely any tracking. Also how it looked too. Now we got lots of oversimplification and roundness in places like Google. Take the new log in screen for example, why does everything need to be ROUNDED?!