Probably the lack of grifters. That halcyon time before the notion of being your own personal brand. Amazing amount of selflessness out there in the early days of connecting online. Yeah back when it seemed like it was all going to broaden horizons and democratise rather than link up all the hatred. OK I don't miss that sea of AOL floppies and later CD's or the pain of 28.8 modem but hey.
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Oh I forgot the floppies and cds. Yeh little packets everywhere. They were a little bites of history, seeing one now would just hurtle me back in time.
And the hatred it’s been a horrible little march but it feels like that some days. It feels very helpless and learning to step back from being online is a struggle for me. I feel like a real old person.
Authenticity. Everything somehow feels like it's for sale and nothing elsw. Even open source software seems to get polluted. There's nothing wrong with making a living - why are you trying to hide it, package it in some backwards way? There still are a few bastions left, but I'm not holding my breath.
Everything somehow feels like it’s for sale and nothing elsw.
YES! I miss the personal websites that people actually paid their hobby money for to host them. And which they cared for: hand-crafted HTML, barely any JavaScript, no cookies, etc.
Nowadays, a lot of websites are huge monsters full of useless information and fillers but with a lot of ads. Similar to how so many people post 10+ minute YouTube videos about how to switch a light bulb - but then put 10 ad breaks into it. Everything has to create an income. Awful!
This was named enshittification, and it's truly everywhere now.
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I miss 2000s internet. discussions seemed so much more authentic, I remember when a question on Reddit would get comments a paragraph or more long with people engaging in sincere discussion with one another. now it's all the same recycled jokes and one liners over and over
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also those colourful websites people would make that had questionable formatting but a distinct 2000s vibe and tons of character
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old YouTube, back when vids were rated by stars and channels were all different colours. why did sites go all corporate looking i hate it
Yeh, I miss the eclectic, but rawness of the old stuff. There were some dodgy design choices but it was a great time. The web.2.0 design stuff where everything was a cyan or turquoise mirror bubble look was the next one. Boring but still not the clone like monotonedronefest we see now.
Weird personal websites that were full of exactly the information you needed, that loaded really quickly... and then were full of other random stuff that was just "this is what this person knows and likes".
For example, you'd get things called something like "Tim's little website" and it would have a picture of him and his dog and his garden, and then the next page would have basically the world's best guide to writing your own website in html, followed by a conversion chart between metric and imperial screw sizes, a guide to all the episodes of Bagpuss and instructions on how to make a guitar out of common household objects. The website would end with "Links" where they'd list other websites they liked.
that loaded really quickly…
Cries in 56k dialup
Yup. I can see it in my head now. Always had a square header with random images squished in.
...and a page they intended to add, but hadn't got round to doing yet, so they'd write "under construction" in yellow and black, next to a pixel-art construction vehicle.
Nyan Cat, flash games, GeoCities, YouTube before Google ruined it.
Flash games. Oh boy!
If you want to relive them Flashpoint Archive has them all
Does that site contain all the old 2000's malware too?
I'm sure Flash was the original internet malware delivery mechanism of choice.
Says it contains
a sandbox that allows for secure playback of plugin-enabled content
So maybe?
phpBB forums about niche topics with 20 regular users who you could get to know over time.
Came here to write this exact thing. I remember stalking a forum of some loose circle of friends and learning about the life in a subculture in one another city in the early 2000s. So much everyday wisdom (and dumb memes) got lost when it was shut down. Back then folks were not afraid of sharing their private life online without a filter.
the old internet, when it was real
Chuck Norris jokes
I was thinking way earlier than that.
Any old you fancy. What do you miss?
Newgrounds (which I guess is still around tho?), IRC and ICQ. Further down, YTMND.