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>With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything is generated/shared.

That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-corporate internet.

Or maybe it's just nostalgia for a simpler time.

> That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-corporate internet.

Try pre 2000. Nearly every website was made by an enthusiast of some type. Banner ads just barely existed, and you could reach out and talk to almost anyone who was online. There was also an assumption of politeness and civility.

Oh yes.

Totally unknown people randomly met on IRC in 1994/1995 would send you CDs of their own music, strangers from other countries would invite you to come and stay a couple weeks at their place (that existed again for a while at the beginning of Couchsurfing), etc.

The level of trust and friendliness was incredible: There was maybe 0.1% of the population online and we were in awe of this new world.

> There was maybe 0.1% of the population online

I find that HN roughly equates to that 0.1%, and there are definitely some other high quality corners of the internet where enthusiasts of whatever topic can have excellent discussions, but it's tough to find them among the ever-increasing noise.

Now that roughly everyone is online to some extent, what's the next frontier -- what can provide that sort of hidden community? I don't know that "power user" or "computer nerd" will ever be the means of gatekeeping that it once was, so what's next?

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but the closest modern equivalent might be the various VR games / apps that are centred around socializing with other random people (like VR Chat).

> There was also an assumption of politeness and civility.

lol teenaged me on IRC did not get that memo.

Even back in the BBS days in the 80s, there was always that one guy who was the asshole and trolled people on forums. Once you talked to him one on one, he was actually pretty normal.

Hmm, I dunno. Even if people were rude I think it was by consensus, not because they felt like they could get away with anything.

They felt like they could get away with anything because they could!

I think one difference was that you could hide a little friendly community fairly easy and because the meanness and abuse was seen as an expression of real world powerlessness rather than an enforcement of real world power structures.

Oh there were banner ads, but most were for link exchanges. Remember those? You'd browse someone's website and a banner ad would promote somebody else's. You could get lost for hours!

Web rings!

That assumption of politeness and civility was well on its way out around 1998.

That was the year I recall netnews turning into something resembling an open sewer. By 1999, I had dropped off netnews completely. It had gone from a wonderful community of spaces for almost any topic imaginable, to a constant stream of trolling and porn.

I feel like it was just as corporate, but it was at a different point in the lifecycle. Like, early on, companies had to make the best software they could to get people using computers and communicating over the internet. Now that everyone is hooked, the corporations can switch to extraction mode.

You know, nobody actually needs to participate in this rat race for few seconds of attention (of people you don't care about much), there are no real gains at all in it, not long term, not anything in say quality of life lived or happiness.

I used to be like that, posting 50+ albums of beautiful curated adventure photos per year (basically every weekend trips to alps, backpacking plus ie some evening climbing outdoors on mountain nearby and rest of life like concerts etc). Literally tens of thousands of photos at this point, sometimes stuff NatGeo would be happy to use. Backpacking around the world in wild places relatively few visit, always having full frame camera (+ diving cam + often gopro) with me.

I got told I should start Instagram, get followers, create 'brand' etc but never went that way since that wasn't the reason for doing it.

When first kid came, I toned down everything, stopped some things, less time to curate all those photos in lightroom. With second child, I practically stopped using camera and currently use just good phone (Samsung S22 ultra). My public photo stream basically died since I don't feel the need to share my kids/family photos, they feel much more intimate than just myself doing something cool/extreme. Close family still gets quite a few of those, but that's it.

And you know what? I am fine, I don't miss this at all, and I definitely don't miss similar feeds coming from other folks (especially if they go to some place / experience something and then for a week there are photos dripping 1 by 1 about the same single thing, I began to hate that). Actually I am more than fine, unplugging quite a bit, reversing this process, having more time for much more important matters in life.

Unplugged from quite a few social circles around those activities (but not all). So online life became similar kind of novelty you describe.

"we were offline by default...you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them" that is strong and so true.

> we were offline by default in our lives […] Now it is the other way around - we live online by default, sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time, photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty.

We’re probably the same age, and I definitely see people matching that description.

Just to note, there’s also a decent number (most I know?) that went almost the opposite way:

“online” was a novelty but also the only place to share their experiences and participate to their community. With a group of friend we pestered the local com. company for broadband and were among the test group when they decided to start, and spend a crazy amount of time on IRC/ICQ/usenet.

I recently met again with some of the old friends, and our facebook accounts are stubs to keep our name. We’re still on other anonymous SNS but it’s clear we don’t want to share more than needed, and don’t want to spend too much time on it overall.

Basically now that “online” can be used anytime from anywhere, there’s no need actively seek it and novelty is gone so we’re more restricting what we do there.

Similarly I was 'online' much more during my teen years than I am today. I think two key things changed:

1. I started enjoying things outside of the internet more and more, partially due to how the internet has changed, partially due to how I've changed. 2. There's less FOMO due to as you mention, being able to be "online" anywhere. This creates an entirely different atmosphere, I won't miss something because I'm not at my computer. This actually leads me to being online much less, I can be out and about doing things and get ping by my friends on Discord. Very different than when I didn't want to go out because I couldn't talk to my friends.

> Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason why most of the people have good memories about XP.

To some extend, but I think most people enjoyed XP mostly because it came after 98/ME, and before Vista, which I think are both much worse for different reasons.

The thing is all of these are still here. There are a ton of artisanal websites, blogs and fansites. Lots of communities on IRC, MUDs... Yes it is a small percentage compared to all of current internet users, but still enough for you to spend several lifetimes reading and long hours participating into.

The implication that Microsoft operating systems are anything but pain and misery does not Compute.