Webrings, RSS and dedicated blogs and forums were how we got around, Alta Vista would give you 1-2 relevant links eventually (after digging thing keyword spam) and then you’d follow the clues and links from each result and eventually strike gold. It was a skill that gate kept certain areas of the web, but in a good way.

But google was pretty awesome before it enshitification, same with Reddit and instagram (pre Facebook takeover).

We need a good non-profit search engine that can re-open the independent web that’s still there under the spam somewhere. But it sounds about as likely as overhauling the us election system, or reigning in capitalism in any way. Hard and expensive to rich people.