Comment by pera | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pera | Hacker News Reader

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> There is neocites, and a small community of people who share this philosophy about the web (and that are relatively young), but I have not met anyone my age, in the real world, that would choose to do something like this.

When I was a teen at least half of my classmates had some kind of personal website (trends changed very fast back then but for my generation it all started with geocities). The idea of making something unique and sharing it online was very fun. It felt like you had a lot of freedom to do almost anything you wanted. There were no expectations, no standards to follow, nor "successful" people to imitate.

Probably my nostalgia is distorting my perception here but to me modern internet looks extremely homogeneous: everything seems to come from the same cookie-cutter, and the only degree of freedom you have is to either follow the formula for ranking higher or sink into the algorithmic oblivion.

When I was a teen, most of my peers were not online and were not interested in being online, and actively derided anyone who even touched a computer without it being under duress - U.K., mid to late 90’s. A scattered few, usually those with bands, had a MySpace. I can count the geocities sites on one hand.

A big part of what the author is lamenting for, and touches upon with his final paragraph, is the Internet of weirdos, before the cool kids and your mother also got online.

It’s gone. September happened. It also still exists, in niches and pockets here and there - but the Wild West days are done.

Bingo, you hit the nail on the head. At that point in time my friend group were skaters and rockers with bands - the internet was a connection to that world that was in short supply in the small town we grew up in.

It's funny how the mind plays tricks with our memories too.

I could have sworn myspace was around ~2000/1, but apparently it wasn't founded until 2003.

To be honest, a 2 year difference is not much. I could not tell much between 2016 and 2018, for example.

Well, the old internet was partially based on people knowing each other. Then the large players made it all about mass engagement. Maybe we should go back to linking your friends webpages from your own and have a small amount of readers.

I'd rather say in was based on common interests, and you'd go out of your way to find "your" community. I'm still friends with people I "met" on various phpBB forums 20 years ago.

The web was a diverse and dynamic space. Users were free to experiment with design, content, and interactivity without worrying about conforming to algorithms or best practices.

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