Showerthought: My nephew asked me what a 'blog' was and it hit me how much the web has changed

He was doing a school project on the 2000s and found an old Geocities page I mentioned. I tried to explain how anyone could just put text online back then, no likes or algorithms. It made me realize how much we've traded that open space for these walled gardens where everything gets filtered. Does anyone else miss that feeling of the early internet being more like a public square?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron7401mo ago

But wasn't that old web mostly just a mess of broken links and ugly pages?

kaigibson1mo ago

Broken links built character. My first website looked like a ransom note made in MS Paint.

the_leo1mo ago

Sure it was messy, but that was kind of the point. It wasn't a mall where everything was polished and sold to you. It was more like a town where anyone could put up a flyer or build a weird little shed about their cat. The broken links were part of the charm, like finding an overgrown path. Now everything feels pre-approved and shoved into the same three clean layouts.