As a Gen Xer, it's wryly amusing to hear today's internet referred to as "Web 2.0". What we have today is not what I think of when I hear "Web 2.0". I'm sure there are internet scholars who can give some formal definitions and timelines, but to me Web 2.0 was the period roughly from 2002–2012, when the web had an age of amazing blogs, sites, videos, and (flash) games generated by individuals. I probably visited many dozens of different sites a week, which all had a very distinctive feel and perspective.

I think that era ended due to a combination of a bunch of factors, particularly the iPhone, which defined the model for the modern smartphone. The iPhone favored an infinite scroll of bite-sized bits of content meant to go viral and a lot of the mindshare that was building web 2.0 sites, switched over to building mobile apps.

It's easy to get nostalgic, but I miss Web 2.0. There are still very many interesting things going on on the internet, but they are largely filtered through the business models of a handful of mega-platforms that have a distorting effect.