I align a lot with this post. From growing up in a rural house where internet access was harder to get. It was slow and only had one line, if you were on the internet, no one in the house could recieve a phone call. Idk if what is now the smol webl, the indieweb, is seeing a resurgence, if I’m just noticing it more. It does feel like along there has been a very small number of users willing to get their own domain, their own server, and host their own shit. A few of these are starting to really break out occasionally, see things like wordle hitting mass adoptioun before being swooped up by a giant.
I too miss the internet of old, heck I really dont even mind the middle era of fb, twitter, instagram dominance, but what we have now is dominated by political undertones on it all with everyone shouting “Fake News” at each other. These sites are the easiest place to stay in touch with those you have met online, yet they are riddled with so much toxicity its impossible to have a great experience on them. I’m about a year and a half of not having a single one on my phone, and at this point I barely log into them once a week. RSS is the way forward, as long as its not killed by paywalled substack and medium.