The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

For me, what has really changed is the feeling of having community on the Internet.

In the 90s, I had:

    Instant Messenger with people I knew
    IRC channels for interests
    Forums for specific topics
    A Web Ring for my James Bond website

Back then, the Internet felt like an actual place I went to. I would sit down at the computer, dial up, and enter a space that had boundaries. When I was done, I left, and that separation made the time I spent there feel focused and real. You couldn't take it with you, and that was a feature, not a bug.

In the 2000s, we had:

    Social Media (Facebook), where you actually talked to people you knew and shared experiences with them

It hadn't yet become a content distribution machine. It was still a tool for connection.

All of this still exists, but it just doesn't feel the same. I don't think it's simply because I grew up, or because I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses. And I don't think it's just because these spaces became ghost towns as people consolidated into a few large networks. The architecture changed. The Internet stopped being a destination and became a layer on top of real life that never turns off. Somewhere along the way, the business model shifted from helping people talk to each other to extracting as much attention as possible, and you can feel that in every interaction.

Maybe that's why something is missing.

Facebook now has too many connections, and is just designed for resharing and getting people to doom scroll. There's no real interaction with your friends anymore. It became a broadcast network pretending to be a living room.

On Reddit, I feel like the community is way too big. I don't know who I am talking to and have no connection with anyone on there, even for things that should be local, like my city's subreddit. It feels less like a neighborhood and more like a stadium where thousands of people are shouting over each other.

Hacker News feels the closest to a community, but it is still too big. I have never made a single personal connection here, so I don't even know what I am contributing to. It all just feels faceless and bland.

We still have "Instant Messaging", but my biggest issue is they are pretty much all tied to a phone and "always online." I have zero interest in having a long back-and-forth conversation on that medium, especially now that there is no status of the other people. Back in the day, you were online or not online, and that boundary created a kind of ritual. A conversation could actually be instant and FOCUSED because you both showed up to the same place at the same time. Now it's just a slow conversation over days that randomly interrupts what you are doing. The persistence feels more like an obligation than a hangout.

Most forums feel dead. IRC just isn't the same anymore, and I really dislike being locked into Discord or other proprietary platforms. Matrix bridging has been a godsend, but isn't perfect. I know these small communities haven't completely vanished, but they have been buried. In the old days, you found them through webrings and serendipity. Now you have to dig for them on purpose, and most people never will. My long time friends don't use them anymore, so they aren't useful in connecting to people I already have relationships with.

The Internet just doesn't feel connected or fun anymore.

Don't get me wrong, being able to do research and find information on the internet is better than it has ever been, and I am grateful for that. But the Internet seems to have split in two: it became an incredible tool for finding information, and a terrible tool for sustaining relationships. The Internet was touted as a place for connection, and I feel like that part is long gone. Or if it still exists somewhere, it's hiding in small corners that the algorithms never show us, while the rest of the web is optimized for engagement instead of actually being together.

This is 100% nostalgia writing.

Yes the internet has changed, as it always has. The internet is many layers built upon each other. Under no circumstances would I consider the 2000s to be the "old internet", there are probably plenty of people in this thread who get a chuckle out of that. I assure you, there are plenty who look down on what you think was the "golden age". The procession of generations is to lament the younger and affirm Hesiod's ages of man in their own way. I'm sure you don't have to dig very hard to find computer scientists lamenting the new generation of undergrads in the 1980s who spent too much time with the low-brow, crude and totally soulless Usenet phenomenon.

The "old internet" isn't dead, and this is somewhat acknowledged by the author with a disclaimer. In fact, they make note the number of people producing work that they would normally value is higher than ever. But they lament it with a vague feeling that it's simply "not the same", not feeling like it "came from some place". That's very telling, because that's exactly a sensation of disenchantment. As we age, there are less surprises, less things feel new, less mysteries to wonder about. Patterns that were hidden and novel come into stark relief. The more pessimistically minded begin to suffer from world-weariness. Anomie sets in, and rationalization begins, attempting to ground the loss of youthful whimsy with some external phenomenon.

I would say embrace it, you were always on your way to become a crotchety old coot. That's a very important social role to play. Just don't mistake your rationalization of feelings for something substantial, it's nothing but a hard-wired delusion to help guide your development as a human being.

This is a good point, and is depressing on its own...

I swapped to Linux last year and my computer has actually been fun. Bazzite is great. I barely tinker with it if ever and it’s mostly because I feel like it, not out of necessity. I have a very reliable gaming and video editing machine, mostly using open source stuff, and I am in no way a coder/programmer/engineer. I just love using it.

Tinkering with retro consoles has also been very satisfying. I would say more than half of the consoles in my home are modded in some way or another. My kids love it.

Then of course there’s film photography. Talk about a great way to force yourself to be intentional and patient. You can buy any dinky camera and a nifty 50 for like $100, it’ll work just fine. Just get out there and shoot and send off your rolls to be processed. Even just getting one or two good shots out of a roll feels fantastic. Every single photo you take matters and is memorable. It’s refreshing.

That seems kind of like a non-sequiter none of that stuff has anything to do with what made the internet special so I don't see how doing so would help either bring the internet back or create a viable alternative.