The Internet I Grew Up with Doesn't Exist Anymore
The author reflects on the early internet era—characterized by personal websites, DIY culture, and niche communities—and argues that this decentralized, quirky internet has been replaced by a handful of centralized platforms, algorithmic feeds, and corporate control, fundamentally changing the online experience.
Background
- This essay by Nick Cleberg mourns the transformation of the internet from a chaotic, exploratory space (early 2000s Web 1.0/early Web 2.0) into a sanitized, corporate-owned ecosystem dominated by a few giant platforms (Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple).
- Key vanished experiences: personal blogs and GeoCities sites full of amateur creativity and quirks; flash games and independent forums; the feeling of "surfing" from site to site rather than being funneled into algorithmic feeds.
- The shift was driven by centralization (smartphones and app stores), the dominance of advertising-based business models, and the consolidation of digital life onto platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
- The essay connects this loss to broader feelings of nostalgia for a more playful, less commercialized internet — a common sentiment among Millennials and older Gen Z who remember the pre-2010 web.