I found a BBQ site that had a webring the other day.

I was so happy.

This something we cannot bring back: when we were all new to this, it felt so unbelievable. Suddenly we were casually chatting with people thousands of kilometers away, who were of a completely different background. I'll never forget when I (living in Germany with a turkish migration background) was talking to a US based Neonazi who said that he had nothing against turks, but he heard turks where the nxxxers of Germany. I mean, that was not a pleasant conversation, but it was just so unbelievable that this was actually happening. It felt like everything was possible now. I mean back in 2001 I thought "Hey, let's hear the other side" and just went on the talibans website. Just a few years earlier that kind of insight was simply impossible. The internet just felt borderless.

A lot of things were terrible though, like "asl" or when any wrong click could easily land you on a disgusting and deservedly illegal website. Crazy times.

I miss the lack of misinformation. I remember when the news was relatively unbiased. Now everyone is selling fear and outrage.

My crush coming online. Miss you, •..••´¯``•.¸¸.•psyko_love•.¸¸.•´´¯`••..•

Anonymity

The goddamn chatrooms mate now all i can find for the life of me is sext rooms with lust zombies 🥲🥲🥲

I kinda miss forums. I still use forums sometimes but it's not the same. I miss the old YouTube. I miss the Internet feeling niche back when everything was still new on the Internet. I still love the Internet and always will.

Forums.

This is my favorite part of the old web.

a guy doing a weird thing and writing a piece on it

This. Someone doing something weird/smart/stupid because they thought it would be cool, and then documenting it because they care.

Now that kind of shit is on YouTube, monetized, and totally without charm. Most importantly, it isn't documented well enough to reproduce. It's bullshit.

Monetization can fuck off. I want my weird passion projects back.

I've done a lot to make the web somewhat usable again via extensions and workarounds, so maybe that's why I'm not as frustrated as others.

I do use Linux, GrapheneOS, the terminal, and a lot of various tools to give me a far more minimal experience on the web by default. Ublock with paywall block filter lists, JavaScript off by default, duckduckgo lite search, and privacy redirect extensions shut out most of the noise. I even have sponsor block cut out mentions of sponsors on YouTube videos. So for the most part I just get pure content.

I do miss the culture behind the old web when people were more optimistic and experimental with what they would do with their websites, or just more minimal in their approach cuz they kind of had to.

I do miss the prevalence of old school discussion forums, and I'll always prefer IRC, XMPP, or Matrix over platforms like Discord.

The Fediverse, especially Lemmy, is a welcome breath of fresh air though. So the modern web isn't all bad.

Cracked is still around. 🤨 They just... Suck now outside of some of the stuff they do on YouTube.

It's not really any specific thing I miss about the old internet, personally. Most of what I do is the same now as it was then. It's really the vibe and the fact more shit is owned by big corporate entities and not just some dude in his garage, attic or basement. That's why I like Lemmy. It's all garage/attic/basement people (well except threads but fuck zuck) 😋

• Usenet
• uucp

Search engines that didn't require esoteric knowledge of an entire search language to get actually meaningful results.

Forums. I found forums the most engaging, interesting structure for "social media" that has ever been invented. I actually tended to get to know the people on them over time.

I have no idea why we ditched that structure in favor of "platforms".

I miss when most people didnt have access to internet 😀

Link pages. Just people putting their organised bookmarks online.

Internet directories. All the topics organised like a library.

badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger

mushroom! mushroom!

badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger

OLGA - the OnLine Guitar Archive.

It was a huge collection of free guitar tablature. Mostly txt files cobbled together by enthusiasts. The first time I used it, it was only an FTP server. It was rough, sure, but it beat the snot out of the ad-riddled, subscription models we have today. There was a version of Time in a Bottle that I learned half of twenty five years ago and I have never managed to find the rest. It drives me crazy because it was a really good version. Someone had put the two guitar parts together to make a better sounding, hard-as-fuck to play single guitar version. Every version on the Internet now is some dumbed down PoS, or the OG that needs two guitars.

Flash. :(

Interactions defaulting to positive.

Seems like I can't comment on anything without dealing with an akshually bro, someone tearing me apart because interpreted a certain way there's an exception, or just plain doing a drive by pity party and telling all of us that something sucks (cool story bro).

I miss how civil everyone was towards each other.

HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS

No SPAM. No ads. Only people with an IQ of above 100.

Having the time to waste on forums.

If there were adverts, they were single still images that you could scroll past and forget.

Usenet

Widespreadness of local provider networks even if you have not paid for the internet access. You could literally download and watch movies, play games and etc by just using DC++ for local provider network file sharing, servers of which they freaking hosted by themselves.