What do you miss the most about "the internet of old"?

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I personally miss people's untamed creativity when it came to creating, customizing and presenting their profiles.

Visiting sites like MindViz and VampireFreaks showed me an almost endless display of HTML mastery, and I miss the fact that some sites would let you run wild with profile customization. It made each and every one of us feel unique in a way that avatars and signatures couldn't quite convey.

I'm sure there are security reasons not to let people do that anymore, but it feels like a step backwards.

What do you think, though?

 

[fake-kun]

People making fan sites.

 

[Yousef]

This one might surprise most people; forum lets plays.
Let’s plays begun as a forum thing, people started a thread, they’d discuss a game they’re playing for the first time and share thoughts and images about the game and everyone discusses OP’s experience and reactions.

 

[middler]

I miss not being bombarded by advertisements every time you clicked a link.

Oh and flash animation.

 

[fake-kun]

This one might surprise most people; forum lets plays.
Let’s plays begun as a forum thing, people started a thread, they’d discuss a game they’re playing for the first time and share thoughts and images about the game and everyone discusses OP’s experience and reactions.

Speaking of forum Let's Plays, I love reading and re-reading MMBN ones just because they're so funny.

This Let's Play for MMBN4 is my favorite.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

People making fan sites.

Agreed. The very first Dragon Ball Wiki I had ever seen was made by ONE DUDE, and it covered every series from DB to GT.

 

[Don Patch]

The wild-west-status layout an UI.
In a way, I appreciate the current standards... but also miss the days of bubbly nonsense buttons and such all over the place ?

 

[Smiley Cat]

Kinda reminds of the early 2000's "myspace" days, where people went crazy with their profiles, and added a ton of auto-playing videos, music, obnoxious backgrounds, marquee scrolling text, bad fonts etc etc...

I'm glad we've moved on from that, but weirdly I do have some nostalgia for it too.

(And yeah, I'm aware that this kind of thing pre-dates myspace back to the angelfire (etc) website days. But those were more websites, rather than profiles.)

 

[Gorse]

I grew up on blog culture, and it heavily defined my way of thinking and sense of humor for a very, very long time. Reading the long-form written thoughts of people like Stuart Ashen, John Kricfalusi, and Phillip J. Reed really made me laugh my head off, and gave me a love for well-written internet material that no other itch has scratched. I don't think this is ever coming back, because it made 0 money and nobody likes reading anymore, but I wish it did.

Also, it seems like webcomics have totally died off, doesn't it? They probably hit their height around the early to mid-2010s, but it's all over, now. Webtoons are huge, of course, but they're all in a pretty homogenous style and format... I had a lot of comics I used to read as soon as they updated, but now they're either gone or the creators are old depressives. I don't know if these will ever come back in a non-meme format, either.

Also also, and the most important thing, I love "glossy" design, which was common across the internet until around 2016. It gave every site a sense of personality, which is now completely gone because everyone has the same personality. Check out these examples:

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

and added a ton of auto-playing videos, music,

Because of Flash's "crimes against humanity" sentence, most of that hasn't been properly archived... but I HATED that. It wasn't fun coming across one of those with a dial-up connection.

 

[Bonkers225]

The joy of discovery when everything felt new.

 

[ATenderLad]

The fun of seeing things made by people, even the weird shit. Maybe someone wanted to make a website dedicated to eradicating squirrels, they could and did!

The internet was pretty neat, before everything was products and ways to buy them.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

The fun of seeing things made by people, even the weird shit. Maybe someone wanted to make a website dedicated to eradicating squirrels, they could and did!

The internet was pretty neat, before everything was products and ways to buy them.

Oh, boy.

There was a webseries exactly like that XD

 

[adamthekaiju]

This might sound a little weird, but I miss how the old internet and real life were two separate things. I liked checking social media on a computer and I liked how it was the norm.

 

[otogirisou]

Getting actual results instead of marketplace links when using search engine, especially on google. Google often semi-cencored blogspot, their own blogging platform, on the search results.

 

[CureMofurun]

I miss when everyone where not condensed into a limited number of large social medias. You could find an active site or forum for everything and pretty much only interact with like minded people instead of everything being made to shove content that makes you mad everywhere. Of course, there still would be fights, but it didn't felt like the entire site was structured in a way to make everyone hate each other.

I miss when cookies were also useful as a trade-off for the data collecting. Nowadays not only every single details of our lifes is being documented without our consent even while using paid products conected to the internet, but we can't even have the luxury of things like 1 time pop ups with "never show me again", and instead being forced to see te same inconveniences poping up in your face to use basic things.

I miss when spam of predatory ads/pop ups were exclusive to sketchy websites and not something you just expect to see in any news outlet ou streaming website.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

This might sound a little weird, but I miss how the old internet and real life were two separate things. I liked checking social media on a computer and I liked how it was the norm.

I get it, man.

I'm from the last generation to enjoy the internet as something you had to chain yourself to twenty kilograms of computer in order to enjoy. I miss that divide.

 

[Yousef]

This might sound a little weird, but I miss how the old internet and real life were two separate things. I liked checking social media on a computer and I liked how it was the norm.

I totally get it. Nice avatar by the by.

Getting actual results instead of marketplace links when using search engine, especially on google. Google often semi-cencored blogspot, their own blogging platform, on the search results.

YouTube is now impossible to rely on for search results. It’s all clutter.

The fun of seeing things made by people, even the weird shit. Maybe someone wanted to make a website dedicated to eradicating squirrels, they could and did!

The internet was pretty neat, before everything was products and ways to buy them.

When I was a kid, I was horrified by a new grounds animation where ash caught a bear as a Pokémon (yes, an actual wild bear, not Ursaring) and the bear brutally beat the crap out of ash and pikachu. I rewatched it and recently and found it hilarious. The genuinely zany part was that Krillin so fighting ash… for some reason xD

 

[MistHunter]

I miss msn communities. and the original msn (before lite). and all the emoticons you wish to design...

 

[BigTony]

I miss people saying what they really thought. Nowadays it seems like everyone is too afraid of being banned or getting doxed to say anything that could be considered offensive or controversial.

I also miss when google search actually worked and gave you what you were looking for

 

[glokglakglak]

everything
especially the big lack of tiktokers and people on the spectrum, for a lack of being able to say what i truly want cos i don't wanna get banned even here ??

and i miss chad daddy ^ (and when sony was ballin, but pee ess triple was the beginning of the end)

i REALLY hate this modern world now where AI is everywhere and you got AI apologists ???

 

[Yousef]

I’m gonna add a couple of things here.

• Yes. Video sites were better when stuff like TikTok and YouTube shorts didn’t exist.
• Quick rant videos like the aforementioned Pee Ess Triple
• Blog sites were fun. Waiting for a site to update is waaaay more fun than browsing social media apps.
• YTP and parody song videos that didn’t use AI

 

[BigTony]

I’m gonna add a couple of things here.

• Yes. Video sites were better when stuff like TikTok and YouTube shorts didn’t exist.
• Quick rant videos like the aforementioned Pee Ess Triple
• Blog sites were fun. Waiting for a site to update is waaaay more fun than browsing social media apps.
• YTP and parody song videos that didn’t use AI

Youtube getting rid of video responses is the worst decision they ever made

 

[Tronky.it]

Leaving aside MSN - I've had the MSN message ringtone as my WhatsApp message ringtone on my phone for 6 years now - I would tell you the "Toontown/Club Penguin-like" games.
Those browser games where you would get together with your friends after a day of school and homework and go play minigames or just chat. The magic of those games will never be surpassed by just any Fortnite or CoD.

 

[geeforty]

been thinking about this for atleast a year now and what I really miss about it was how open yet secluded everything is. there were a million forums and sites for every niche and if you saw stuff you didn't like, you could just find another fourm/community. now outside of niche uses like here and doomworld, a lot of the internet is made up of like 5 sites max with billions of users set on an algorithm where even if you clean your page up, you're still gonna see stuff you hate/dislike. the iPhone really ruined everything tbh.