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

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I miss the ads being less intrusive. I mean they still existed and were pretty stinky but they weren't this bad.

Agreed. They were also somewhat relevant to the site you were visiting.

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

I miss Flash games...
And ads being less annoying than they are now.

 

[bonbonprince]

I really miss the fact people seemed more "Passionate" made the effort to do nice things aka Touhou, WTC, Air and Kanon fan works back in the 2000s

 

[Vetusomaru]

Its funny seeing the "kids are so open with personal info now" because while that is true, I also know that was absolutely true of the old internet.

No, it wasn't. And that applied to both kids and adults that were using the internet back then. Just sharing your photos with strangers at the internet (let alone...adult photos) was a huge deal. Now it's the norm. Also back then normies would warn you about "talking with strangers at the internet". Now they treat you like an alien for not having social media and for keeping your anonymity at the internet with them equaling anonymity with trolling just because politicians and msm brainwashed them to think like that. Which is ironic since politicians actually hire anonymous trolls to attack their enemies at the internet and spread their propaganda. Shit is even more annoying at Greek social media and YouTube where you find some accounts that share some funny satire videos and posts but you quickly realize that they're doing propaganda for certain political parties while they pretend doing "satire". And generally I hate it when "satire" is used for political propaganda reasons.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

I really miss the fact people seemed more "Passionate" made the effort to do nice things aka Touhou, WTC, Air and Kanon fan works back in the 2000s

Now they do crap like larping as Lain fans and spending hours at visiting Lain fansites and groups...while they haven't even watched the show despite being only 13 episodes.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

No, it wasn't. And that applied to both kids and adults that were using the internet back then. Just sharing your photos with strangers at the internet (let alone...adult photos) was a huge deal.

Ehh... somewhat.

I remember being a member of many sites that offered galleries for the users to upload to and my teenage self got delighted with all the teenage girls exploiting that feature to the point of it being at least a bit concerning. Most of them would also say something like "Hi, I'm (name). I study in (actual school) as a sophomore...".

 

[Klonoa7]

MSN chatrooms were pretty chill back in 2001. No weirdos at the time and random strangers just having a good time.

 

[bonbonprince]

No, it wasn't. And that applied to both kids and adults that were using the internet back then. Just sharing your photos with strangers at the internet (let alone...adult photos) was a huge deal. Now it's the norm. Also back then normies would warn you about "talking with strangers at the internet". Now they treat you like an alien for not having social media and for keeping your anonymity at the internet with them equaling anonymity with trolling just because politicians and msm brainwashed them to think like that. Which is ironic since politicians actually hire anonymous trolls to attack their enemies at the internet and spread their propaganda. Shit is even more annoying at Greek social media and YouTube where you find some accounts that share some funny satire videos and posts but you quickly realize that they're doing propaganda for certain political parties while they pretend doing "satire". And generally I hate it when "satire" is used for political propaganda reasons.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

Now they do crap like larping as Lain fans and spending hours at visiting Lain fansites and groups...while they haven't even watched the show despite being only 13 episodes.

ugh ikr I hate this kind of tourists

 

[Vetusomaru]

Ehh... somewhat.

I remember being a member of many sites that offered galleries for the users to upload to and my teenage self got delighted with all the teenage girls exploiting that feature to the point of it being at least a bit concerning. Most of them would also say something like "Hi, I'm (name). I study in (actual school) as a sophomore...".

These sound more like modern forums (from 2010s and after) and not like 2000s forums. I've used countless forums of all kinds in my life and yet I've never met any of them like that. The only kind of selfies some people would share would be photos of their collections, cosplay photos of photos from the forums' offline meetings. The forums you describe sound more dating forums or something.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

Another thing about old internet is that weirdos were so rare that you would usually treat them as something to laugh at with your friends. But with them being fucking everywhere and running big sites and communities it's nothing to laugh about.

 

[Somnia]

No, it wasn't.

Idk why people wanna pretend otherwise but by the mid-2000s it was pretty damn common on all kinds of online communities lol. It never took much to get people to give you a name, a general location or yes even pictures. Was it as ubiquitous as it is now? Certainly not, but the behavior absolutely existed on all kinds of websites and communities and I struggle to know how people can think otherwise.

Another thing about old internet is that weirdos were so rare that you would usually treat them as something to laugh at with your friends. But with them being fucking everywhere and running big sites and communities it's nothing to laugh about.

I'd also say this just isn't true tbh, but ig that also depends on what the definition of "weirdo" is.

 

[mollieifusco]

The internet being "a place." One you could leave at your parent's desk.

 

[regularmilo]

I miss chat rooms in general. Just public places you could log into with a group of like 20 people, usually talking about the same thing. Sometimes you'd see the same people and start to develop friendships and stuff. It was just nice to be able to anonymously join a space and just chit chat about whatever.

 

[thanonyx]

Flash games

 

[chxshire22]

i miss stumbleupon, i miss sites that have konami code easter eggs. i miss flash games. i miss blogs. i wish more people made websites on blogspot/blogger or wordpress, whatever

 

[Clawsofdrakonian]

I liked it when websites felt personalized than now where it's almost all the same. I liked it when ads where less in-your-face and were related to the nature of the site; now it's almost all crypto and stuff unrelated to the website.

 

[Tr4sh_Kun]

I guess everyone has already said it but I really miss profile customization, current social media and webpages have very limited options regarding customization, while it makes easier to give an homogeneous and more ordered appearence to a website, it makes it look more corporate and soulless

 

[Aziamuth]

1. Forums being more prevalent
2. Watching videos on YouTube without being attacked by ads every 5 minutes
3. Certain information being on actual sites instead of fucking Discord servers

 

[Skeetos]

This is more of a overall complaint about the times we live in themselves, but I really miss how much effort went into everything. Logo designs, websites being super in depth with features (like how YouTube used to let you customize everything about your profile) and the passion that went into designing that stuff. Everything is over simplistic these days to cater to as many boring ass people as possible and in the process we have lost a lot of the soul that many things used to carry, such as the internet. I've always heard that as you get older you start to not see color and all of that, but genuinely I think I'm a part of the first generation that can be comfortable in saying that stuff was better back in the day, and not just because I was a kid looking into an adult's world. Stuff just had more effort and care put into it. Everything is corporate and lazy these days. I hope one day we can revert back to the glory days, but I doubt it.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I couldn't agree more, bro.

Just as an example: I knew someone who had made his very own Dragon Ball WIKI by painstakingly typing out every single book he owned and scanning official images off magazines. That took time, passion and effort... all alien concepts these days.

 

[Graw]

Idk why people wanna pretend otherwise but by the mid-2000s it was pretty damn common on all kinds of online communities lol.

I don't even really remember myspace being full of that many personal photos. That really was a thing that started after facebook came out. Prior to that people really didn't share that kind of stuff online very much at all. That's why a lot of people thought it was nuts when facebook came out and they were encouraging people to post all their personal info and pictures.

 

[chxshire22]

I don't even really remember myspace being full of that many personal photos. That really was a thing that started after facebook came out. Prior to that people really didn't share that kind of stuff online very much at all. That's why a lot of people thought it was nuts when facebook came out and they were encouraging people to post all their personal info and pictures.

dude ur so right. i had a myspace and there weren't any pics of me i didnt bother with it. my page was a kamen rider fanpage most of the time.

 

[oxyhime]

I don't even really remember myspace being full of that many personal photos. That really was a thing that started after facebook came out. Prior to that people really didn't share that kind of stuff online very much at all. That's why a lot of people thought it was nuts when facebook came out and they were encouraging people to post all their personal info and pictures.

fwiw, MySpace was also where early internet celebrities came to be, in part through personal photos and personal content more generally, and i don't think we would have gotten the emo movement without emo kids ante-ing each other up in terms of... overt aeshetic emo-ness. hell, we got two season of a cable reality TV show out of someone being MySpace famous and very forward with their photos (Tila Tequila).

to answer the topic: ... yeah it's the ads. not a fresh answer, but i remember a time when "there is malware that can listen to your microphone and send you targeted ads" was a cautionary tale in Internet-awareness-brochures aimed at kids.

 

[Jeff]

Fun flash games from Cartoon Network's old site or other flash games with stick figures
Newgrounds funny NES 8bit videos and other video game videos
Youtube before Google destroyed it with bad algorithms, and annoying ads

 

[Gorse]

other flash games with stick figures

FACT: My best friend growing up was an e-celeb on either Stickpage or Stickdeath (I can't remember which). He created his own animated series, and was very popular and well-regarded in the community. Apparently, there was a big controversy when users had to migrate from one site over to the other, leading to a permanent fracture in stick figure culture and my friend losing his status. I'm pretty sure he's still bitter about that.