The Epic Saga of the Well (1997)

I wanted so much to be a part of that, but young broke me found other outlets for my desire to argue with people. I see that I can still buy a web forum membership for $100 per year but I can't imagine that it still holds the magic this article describes.

The Well was always one of the fabulous things I read about on Wired. Some kind of nexus of creativity and tech, it seemed a bit like an intellectual promised land of sorts for young me - a modern salon where people openly talked about revolution. I think it's kind of great that we keep bringing it back up to remind ourselves of some of the pioneering talking spaces for the new digital world we're building.

I never got to be part of it, but I sometimes like to pretend that HN is kind of a Well 2.0.

I had a Well account in the mid and late 90s and it was great. Honestly I haven't found any online community that matches what it was back then.