If you’ve ever found yourself missing the “good old days” of the #web, what is it that you miss? (Interpret “it” broadly: specific websites? types of activities? feelings? etc.) And approximately when were those good old days?
No wrong answers — I’m working on an article and wanted to get some outside thoughts.
I miss the era of personal web sites started out of genuine admiration for something, rather than out of a desire to farm a few advertising pennies
This. You wanted to identify a song? Type some of the lyrics into a search engine and hope that somebody transcribed the same lyrics onto their fansite. You needed to know a fact? Better hope some guru had taken the time to share it, or it’d be time for a trip to the library
Not having information instantly easy to find meant that you really treasured your online discoveries. You’d bookmark the best sites on whatever topics you cared about and feel no awkwardness about emailing a fellow netizen (or signing their guestbook to tell them) about a resource they might like. And then you’d check back, manually, from time to time to see what was new.
The young Web was still magical and powerful, but the effort to payoff ratio was harder, and that made you appreciate your own and other people’s efforts more.