The Golden Age of the Web is already long in the past. With companies like Google directing the web in ways Microsoft could only dream of in their Internet Explorer days, we have no chance unless the rest of the world raises billions of dollars to invest in the things that would need to exist to foil Google's control.
I'm the same age as you, and the web we knew is already dead, the parts that migrated to apps are in decline. For example, I can't see myself using reddit for much longer with the amount of bots that are on there now.
Yes, I felt the same. Most of us were too used to sites like Reddit and others. Reddit will end up like MySpace. X is prevailing, but check Facebook and others, they are completely dead, pure bots.