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I'm old enough to have seen multiple golden ages / phases of the internet and was thinking about pointing out every era has one based on your age.

But then again, I kinda suspect there's some deeper truth going on where your mentioned golden age might be one of the last though?

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Yeah, the ubiquity of smartphones and the rise of Facebook and Instagram (post-acquisition) as an open platform for advertisers versus mostly for early adopters/enthusiasts really killed the "fun" of the internet.

Also, I remember how many different frameworks and "rich internet application" technologies existed back then (Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Apple QuickTime, etc.). In many ways, the internet was a much more diverse and a much more 'unpredictable' place back then.

> really killed the "fun" of the internet.

The original eternal September[1] predates my entry to the internet by a couple of years, but the cycle repeats eternally.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Yeah, I'm of the same vintage. Never really felt eternal september impacted the newsgroups I frequented as they didn't appeal to AOLers, and felt it was exaggerated. But it feels real now with engagement metric following content creators and influencers, and the way platforms enable it now.

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