The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back

Old Computer Websites that are original and creative expressions of their creators' personalities were the foundation of the early 1990's Internet. In this article, I will use this as the definition of the term "old Internet", not to imply that these websites are passe, but because their purpose and sometimes even their look has not changed since then. Although the old Internet will not replace the Internet we have today, signs point to it growing in size and visibility as Internet users become increasingly disillusioned with the corporate-run shopping mall that today's Internet has become.

The Internet of the Early 1990's

The public Internet began as a loose collection of network services. Services that had been created for universities and military contractors first became available to the public to fulfill the needs of college students who had recently graduated and wanted to stay in touch with their friends and former professors. Usenet had been around since 1980, local "electronic mail" since the 1960's. In the first couple of years after the Internet went public, much of it consisted of newly-linked BBS's (Bulletin Board Services). Many BBS's also connected to Fidonet, another world-wide network that had been linked via modem over telephone lines since 1984 (and still exists today). The Gopher network also linked the computers of many universities.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, this eclectic collection of networks and services initially seemed rather nebulous and mysterious to me. I remember at first not even being sure what to call it. Whenever I settled on a term, someone would inevitably ask me what I was talking about and then correct me by saying that it was more than just that.

My recollection is that I first stumbled upon electronic mail in 1985 completely by chance while exploring my university's computer network. I rarely had time for exploring because I was always very busy with school work. How I wished I had had more time to explore back then. For whatever reason, on this particular afternoon I had a free hour or two. As I sat in a wooden chair in front of a black-and-white monochrome VT-100 terminal, around me perhaps 8-10 other students peered intently at other identical terminals. Via a 300-baud modem bolted to the wooden table beside my terminal, I was connected to our shared Cyber mainframe that ran the Taurus operating system. The terminals in that room were often hard to connect to the network because students used to reset the modem dip switches. I never understood why, but this was a regular source of annoyance for me. By chance, I came across the sendmail command, wondered about its purpose, and began reading its online manual entry. As soon as I understood its significance, I was eager to try electronic mail, but no one I knew had an electronic mail address. Years passed during which I could only read about electronic mail and hope that one day I would find someone with whom to exchange it. In the 1990's, "electronic mail" became "e-mail", and finally "email". I am fairly certain I sent my first email from work, but I cannot recall that particular momentous event in my life. It probably did not occur until around 1996. The passing of perhaps eleven years between the time I first learned about email and my first use of it seems amazing to me now, after having used it daily, or at least weekly, for decades.

Back in the early 1990's, the spirit of the Internet was the pursuit of knowledge, exploration, innovation, fun, and community. Immediately after going public, it began to swell with websites created by tech nerds who enjoyed playing and experimenting with the new technology. Individuals created their own websites mostly for fun and for the learning experiences that they afforded. Most discussed little more than computer gaming, technical interests, and geeky hobbies. Personal websites soon comprised most of the public sites on the early Internet and essentially became the public face of the Internet. Other than a few blank placeholder websites, corporations and governments had not even established their presences on the Internet. Most were not even convinced that they should be there. A significant number of corporate executives and government leaders did not even know what the Internet was.

In those early years, individuals were free to express themselves on the Internet in any way they wished on any topic they wished without the slightest interference from corporations or governments. Mostly, individuals created the content and ran the platforms that hosted it--Internet-connected BBS's and home computers. Internet users could go wherever they wanted and view whatever they wanted without being tracked or spied on. We had no corporate gatekeepers, no search engines, no SEO or click-bait, no obnoxious advertisements. The "social media" back then--IRC, USENET, BBS's--had little in common with today's social media. The NSA was not monitoring email. No laws punished black-hat hackers. Governments were not even aware of the problem. The Internet was not just unworthy of their attention. It was essentially invisible to them.

The early Internet expanded tentatively at first and then picked up momentum like an avalanche that would eventually cover the earth. I say "tentatively" because even at double digit yearly growth rates, several years passed before a significant percentage of the populations of the developed nations were on line. Public dial-up providers that anyone could use to access the Internet appeared in the United States in the late 1980's. In 1990, the command-line Internet gave way to the graphical Internet when Sir Tim Berners-Lee created HTML and the WorldWideWeb Internet browser and put up the first website. In 1993 the Mosaic Internet browser came into existence, and this finally opened the door for the general public to access the Internet in large numbers. Nontechnical people at first trickled slowly onto the Internet. As I recall, most were drawn by curiosity. They wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Soon, dial-up Internet providers had added hundreds, and then thousands of local phone numbers all over the United States that enabled nearly every interested person to have toll-free access to the Internet. However, many developing countries still did not have direct access to the Internet, but they did have email. As a result, even into the late 1990's, many people around the world relied on a system of email servers that sent them web pages upon request. They "surfed" the Internet by email.

As soon as the Internet opened to the public, most new users raced to the first walled gardens created by early online service providers like CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online. Seemingly, wherever an Internet corral was erected, the cattle of the Internet were drawn to it. Even back then, many in the general public did not realize that they did not need one of these companies to get onto the Internet. All they needed to access the larger Internet was a modem, a phone line, an account with one of the dial-up service providers, and a local phone number to dial into. By the late 1990's, every personal computer had a built-in modem for accessing the dial-up Internet.

I remember thinking in the early 1990's that the Internet was a fabulous invention, but websites were hard to find and small with not much content of general interest. My expectation was that corporations moving onto the Internet would improve it by adding much more interesting content. At that point, I was too naive to see the downside of corporate involvement.

The Internet of Today

Today our personal computers no longer have modems, and Compuserve and Prodigy are long gone. AOL has become a media company, although as late as 2015, 2.1 million people were somehow still using its dial-up service. The Internet itself seems to many to have degenerated into a giant advertising tool. And, a high percentage of websites load as slowly as a sick turtle awaking from a long slumber.

Just as radio stations, newspapers, and television networks were the communications gatekeepers of earlier generations, we now have Internet gatekeepers keeping us in line, on line--preventing our voices from being heard too widely, funneling us to their advertisements, online stores, and walled gardens, and monitoring whether we are taking their bait. They have even incorporated scary-sounding warnings into our web browsers telling us that all websites without certificates issued by them are unsafe! And, they are constantly inventing new ways of keeping the Internet cattle in their corrals. The problem is now so bad that The New Republic has called Silicon Valley executives "apex predators", named Mark Zuckerberge its scoundrel of the year for 2021, and called FaceBook "the worst website that has ever existed"! And, here I was, fearing that perhaps my hostility toward corporate manipulation of the Internet could be driving the Cheapskate's Guide into tabloid territory. The fact is that many, many people hate with a burning passion much of what corporations have done to the Internet.

Despite the widespread hatred of these corporations, the cattle appear to be staying in their corrals. As hard as this may be to believe, as late as 2016, millions may not have known the difference between FaceBook and the Internet. Perhaps this is partly the result of owners of walled Internet gardens telling their cattle for the past three decades that everywhere else is just too dangerous to explore, too wolf-infested to venture into.

Many governments around the world are also interfering with the Internet. Even in so-called "democracies", they seem nearly universally opposed to freedom in any form when it is practiced on the Internet. Many are in the process of fracturing the Internet into single-country "splinternets". For years the governments of Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran have been pushing for changes to the Internet that would make it easier to control. China is developing a new Internet protocol, unimaginatively called the "New Internet Protocol", that will allow it to more effectively spy on its citizens and ban those it decides are engaging in too much online freedom. In 2020, the Russian government passed the latest of a series of measures collectively referred to as the "sovereign Internet law" that, among other things, allows it to disconnect Russia from the rest of the Internet.

In the United States, in fact world-wide, we have had many wide-spread Internet outages that have been blamed on increasing centralization of the Internet but also look suspiciously like governments testing key infrastructure in preparation for placing it more under their control. Of course, I cannot prove this, but the US congress has publicly proposed putting in place laws to make shutting down the Internet easier, should they deem the need to have arisen. Since a case for the Internet being necessary for national security would be widely believed, more than likely, they have already secretly put measures in place and have merely been trying to get them approved publicly.

The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back

Despite the new gatekeepers' best efforts, the old Internet never completely disappeared. Personal websites created by individuals that have always been the meat of the old Internet are still around. They are still about exploration, innovation, fun, and all the rest. Try as the new gatekeepers have, they simply have not had the power to eradicate the old Internet completely. All they can do is pretend it does not exist. And, that is exactly what they do. This means that one does not pursue, peruse, or pour over the old Internet on mainstream search engines like Google or explore it on FaceBook or other mainstream social media platforms. One does not stumble upon the old Internet by chance. If one is to locate it, one must ordinarily go looking for it. Fortunately, the practical difference between the old gatekeepers and the new gatekeepers is that we do not need the new gatekeepers. We can still speak freely and be heard on the old Internet without the permission of any gatekeeper standing guard over the mainstream Internet.

Despite the best efforts of the corporations that control the mainstream Internet, in fact because of them, the old Internet seems to be slowly and quietly coming back, and it is coming back even better than before. Now it has better technology and an additional well-defined purpose that it never had before.

Some people have begun to refer to personal websites as the "indie web", the "small Internet", or the "smol Internet". Some seem to reserve the last two terms exclusively for the Gemini Network, which nearly quadrupled in size last year. But, I think all three terms should also apply to some of the other networks that use alternative networking protocols--the Gopher Network, the Tor network, and the ZeroNet network, to name a few. I choose to think of all of these as being part of the re-emerging old Internet because they are composed almost exclusively of personal websites run by individuals.

Some people use the term "Web 3.0" to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term "web 3.0" seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently decentralized. Unfortunately, despite common goals, some on today's old Internet are hostile to blockchain technology. I am not sure why. Perhaps this is because we seem to be hard-wired to focus on the new and ignore the old, and owners of personal websites on the regular Internet feel ignored. Perhaps they feel the presence of the new blockchain technology only helps to obscure the fact that personal websites on the regular Internet are likely to become a larger more important part of the Internet of the Future--regardless of whether we call it the "old Internet", "Web 3.0", or something else. Perhaps someone should come up with a more descriptive name. Maybe a name like "The Cyberfreedom Network" would attract more attention.

An increasing number of Internet users are revolted by the current corporate-and-government-controlled Internet, and those who create old-Internet websites are doing something about it. They are bypassing the gatekeepers by building their own mini platforms for free speech, where they have a voice that cannot be silenced. I have with some difficulty assembled some of their own explanations of what they hope to accomplish. The difficulty came in culling their words without dulling the spirit of their messages. Hopefully, the remainder, though somewhat lengthy, is an adequate representation of the full spectrum of their thoughts and feelings:

"The internet has become:

   a marketplace (and we are the product)
   a one-sided social experience
   a capitalist hellscape

We, the people of the internet, have the power to transform the internet. The goal is not to go backwards, but to forge a new path forward." --Sadgrl Online

"Few are the websites that respect the user enough to make it actually intuitive, actually easy–to–use and easy to access, and have that philosophy built into the core of its being. ... I create beautiful, verifiable code, because this webpage is more than just a vehicle to deliver content on as soullessly and dispassionately as it can. It's a living, breathing, constantly–evolving entity, and the code is the sole reason it exists. I pay my respects by giving it the dignity it deserves. I respect my audience enough to give them the way a website should be built." --10kb.neocities.org

"While commercial websites display more and more agressive messages, target and track their users, the indie web respects the individuals, their intelligence and their privacy; it's an open forum for thoughts and debate. While purely commercial websites turn into information and entertainment magazines, while tycoons of media, telecom, computing and military agencies fight for the control of the Internet, the indie web offers a free vision of the world, bypasses the economic censorship of news, its confusion with advertising and infommercial, its reduction to a dazing and manipulating entertainment." --Lulu in Cyberspace

"These days, the Internet is contained, reduced to a smaller number of places that people may visit every day. Boring.

It's time to take it back." --Flamed Fury

"I offer up Hell on the Web not as a tribute to the Internet as it is or as it was, but as it could be. I want to share my ideas online, but I don't want it all to be a vain sacrifice at the altar of The Algorithm. The last haven for genuine online creativity is the personal, hand-crafted artisanal Homepage. I can't promise that my products will always be quality, but I can promise that they were created with love and sincerity. That's the Hell on the Web™ guarantee." --Hell on the Web

"Other than now, as a 31 year old woman, I don’t think I’ve ever had as many friendships with women as I did when I was a teenager spending all my free time on the Internet. Not only were other teen girls super into self-expression via blogging in a pre-WordPress era, they really wanted to help each other out!...

For 2017 I really hope that those of us who are trying to make the web / tech / design a more inclusive place will keep on encouraging those just starting out and those wanting to try something new. Don’t allow egos to crush inspiration!" --Keep the Internet Weird, by Rachel White

"Our creativity is stunted by closed walls, limited tools, and stupid algorithms. My social media account isn't a personal museum - it's just a lifeless husk of a personality who's forced into this structure, like a bird stuck in its cage. We're at the hands of the people who run these platforms. No longer is it about sharing that cool thing one has created to friends and strangers, but trying to beat the system, and trying to beat others.

Social platforms should aspire to be flexible, open, and fun. A place to share our humanity, not merely a place to sell a product or to take people down in an attempt to rise to the top. When social platforms reduce to cold, rigidly structured competitive bloodbaths, that's no longer a social platform - that's a bloody colosseum." --bikobatanari

"The web as we know it today, web 2.0, stifles creativity, exploration, and community. The web of today is a capitalist hell, that is actively hurting everyone on it. It hurts and hinders our ability to discover things via surfing the web, and it constantly harms the art of creation as a whole, regardless of medium or art form...

It is things like this and so much more that lead me to getting off my ass and begin working on my neocities [website] out of spite and frustration of the new web...

Together we can forge our own spaces on the web, and create an environment that fosters creativity, passion, exploration and discovery like the old web." --linkyblog.neocities.org

"I don't know why, but for a while I've held a fascination with the old Internet and its values. And so when I made this Website, I decided that I wanted it to harken back to that earlier time." --Purplehello98

"My work is heavily inspired by the myth of early technology, ‘80s CGI and the ‘90s web, a messy, inexplicable place, full of unknown possibilities and innocent ideals. The folk revival of the web is still out of sight but very much in reach. I see it as an antidote to the miasma the internet has become today, or at least a promise that tomorrow can be better." --Melonking

"I think that social media is the problem, and that we can take the internet back by making it a place for art, inspiration, learning, expression, science, math, basically anything anyone wants to share, at the pace anyone would like to learn it, read about it, hear it, or see it. I think we have to remember, because we now have two generations that grew up on this corporate internet, that you don't need the man to communicate on the internet. You don't need to depend on a corporation like Facebook or Twitter or whatever to get your message out there." --tabi98.neocities.org

"...but first and foremost my grief for the internet is sensory. it's about texture. It's about the emotions it made me feel, vs the emotions I feel now. It's mental images of kinds of people that I idolised and associated with the fabric of the web itself, and the sense that a whole kind of person has now disappeared." --Haptalaon's Journal

"Here, then, are the principles I’d like to see applied to the internet.

   Passion over professionalism.
   DIY over Insert widget A into container B.
   Awkward individuality over faceless consistency.
   Connection over commerce.
   Every link a leap into the unknown." --Carl's Retro Web Corner

"I miss when the internet was a wonderland. I don't mean that it was perfect or utopian, because it wasn't. Of course, neither was wonderland, when the Queen of Hearts got ahold of you; she was a master of concern trolling before it really existed. There's always been someone in a hurry, who's running late, but not too late to tell you tl;dr. There's always been the already-in-progress party that only makes sense if you're already part of it.

What I mean is: I miss rabbit holes.

I miss starting with one site and getting led to more. It used to happen on personal websites, and then it happened on wordpress blogs. Sometimes it still happens on blogs or on tumblr, but mostly services want to keep you in their garden..."

"The truth may or may not be out there, but the web we once knew... some of it is still there. Some of it can be reclaimed. And some of it we can rebuild, block by block and snippet by snippet." --Rubedo

"It’s a sad state of affairs that we’re in - gone are the days of Web 1.0 where the humble personal blog and the likes of GeoCities reigned supreme.

Instead we’ve been left with Web 1.0’s rotten remains where centralisation, monopolies and tracking are the order of the day...

The rise of social media flipped content creation on its head. Instead of deliberately creating and editing content for static sites, people were now empowered to quickly and easily vomit their passing thoughts out to the world...

Firstly, as with social media, it’s all about money. The humble personal blog is often left out of search rankings, and is replaced by corporate entities who have teams of people on-hand that can manipulate the search rankings to their will." --The Web Is Fucked

"What we need is the opposite of Big Tech. We need Small Tech – everyday tools for everyday people designed to increase human welfare, not corporate profits." --Aral Balkan

"the internet once was a place for creative expression, vastly customizable; a space for people, by people! not controlled by big corporations.

this lasted all up until mid-2010s, when they decided to take away any creativity and customizability we once had, they threw it all away, in favor of adverisers and investors. alongside big corporations, clout-chasers and quasi-celebrities, also made everything about the money. its the main reason the internet is so boring nowadays, because if its crazy, weird, and colorful, advertisers won't like it. its time for the individuals like you and me to shine once again, and make internet ours. it's time to make internet enjoyable again! it's time to make internet weird again!...

apparently, nowadays, they're trying to 'fix' the internet by slow introduction of the 'decentralized' internet aka web3.0. which is bunch of bullshit. they want us to belive this will make internet free again, cos we'll be away from corporations. but how can it be free, when blockchain is involved?" --Rina's Fun Place

"As we were exploring the new magic of the internet, we often didn't wonder if our fun side projects would make money. Most of us knew they'd do absolutely nothing. Why make them, then? The act of creation itself is fun!" --Bryan Robinson

After these moving statements, I wish I could call for a standing ovation.

For those who are interested, I found most of the above sites from a list of links to Internet manifestos on yesterweb.org.

Final Words

The battle for the right of individuals to be heard on the Internet is largely a quiet one. Behind the scenes, governments are intimidating social media companies into putting in place ever more onerous moderation. Corporations and large social media platforms are silently fighting to keep users on their sites using whatever means they have at their disposal, including addictive algorithms. They call the contents of personal websites "blog spam" (as if their own advertisements were not spam) and ban personal website owners from posting links to articles on their personal websites. They shut down the accounts of individuals who receive too many followers, unless those individuals are surreptitiously working for them as "influencers". Corporations rig their search engines to largely ignore personal websites, and they de-index sites they especially dislike. They try to prevent users from exploring the larger Internet beyond their walled gardens by telling them that non-corporate websites and alternative networks are filled with hackers, thieves, malware, child pornography, and illegal drugs. All this occurs largely without the general public having much more than an inkling that they are being duped.

All indications are that this battle may well last as long as the Internet. Just like other public movements, the tactics will change over the years. Both sides will likely advance and be pushed back at times. The losing side will scream about it, and the winning side will remain silent. I expect that, as always, many Internet users will never even know or care. The battle will continue until perhaps the powers-that-be finally find a way of killing the old Internet completely and permanently through restrictive website certification or licensing, the creation of more easily controllable Internet communications protocols, improved filtering or blocking technologies, or more effective laws against free speech. Until that time arrives, you will continue to be able to visit the old Internet, assuming you know how to find it.

If you have found this article worthwhile, please share it on your favorite social media. You will find sharing links at the top of the page.

Hunting the Nearly-Invisible Personal Website

Escaping from the Mainstream Internet and Leaving the Web Behind

How to Take Back the Internet by Choosing the Internet Less Traveled

Peer-to-peer Networks will Probably Not Soon Become Internet 3.0

Social Media Sites Undoubtedly have Shared Blacklists, and You may be on One.

Embrace the Splinternet without Flinching

Toward a Technological Cage for the Masses

Seven Reasons for having a Personal Website

Going Dark: Looking for the End of the Internet, Part 1

Going Dark: Looking for the End of the Internet, Part 3: The Gemini Project

Gopherspace in the Year 2020

Comments

superkuh
said on Jan 24th 2022 @ 07:54:48pm,

I'm a big supporter (and user) of self hosted websites from home and I'm also a longtime user of cryptocurrency.

Old web users use cryptocurrency. Web 3.0 is about *investing* in cryptocurrency, and that's just the same old finance bro bullshit in new clothing. Cryptocurrency is great but pretty much everything created after 2015 that uses a blockchain is a pre-mine scam of one form or another.

I think you'll find old web users are hostile to "blockchain" stuff because the only "blockchain" stuff in the news these days is about these new scams done mostly, if not entirely, off chain(s).

Lynne
said on Jan 24th 2022 @ 09:30:29pm,

Great post. I ran a BBS on FIDOnet using the first computer I ever bought: a brand new, top of the line 386. I loved that machine, and I loved the internet back then. It was hard to find things, to be sure. But most often all you had to do was find ONE website that included your interest, and it would have a "links" page that would list every other interest-related website that site owner knew about. And those would lead to others, which would lead to others, and so on. I myself set up websites back then, and set up others in the years following. But I stopped doing so when The Algorythm took over and my sites disappeared, going from 10,000 visits a month to maybe a few hundred.

I spend almost no time at all on the "modern" internet anymore, because I rarely find what actually interests me. When link-pages became verboten by The Algorythm, people stopped listing each others' sites.As they freaked out more and more under The Algorythm, they often began trying to block any mention of any site other than their own - gotta get those rankings! Even at the expense of all the other crabs in the bucket.

I'm very pleased that the old/new internet of "Slow", "Retro", "Small" or whatever is growing. I love sites like this, and I'm actually thinking about putting up another website. Not because I won't get 10,000 visits a month. But because I won't. And that will be real.

Andy
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 07:00:02am,

This is a nice post Cheapskate. You are moving toward quiet
optimism. :)

You know, more vinyl records are produced today than at any time.
Most people who describe themselves as "music lovers" own an analogue
turntable, CD player, cassette player, DAT or other pre-internet audio
reproduction system. Long after iTunes and Spotify are dead, the world
will be full of robust physical media and serviceable devices for
playing them. Legacy media is expensive, because manufacture of tape,
CDs or mini-discs is a boutique venture, but that hasn't stopped it.

By this analogy, let's think about what's really going on with the
Internet. As you say, the "old" Internet never went away. It has grown
year on year at about the same rate it was growing when the commercial
internet arrived.

The Internet-2.0, what eventually became the unholy, trinity of
"Social Media", "Big Tech" and "Smartphones", is a different thing.
It's inhabited and run by different kinds of people than those who
comprised the early participatory network. They are predators and
prey. It grew so quickly it seems as though it destroyed the old
Internet. That is part of the story it tells itself. In fact it
simply eclipsed the old net, which is not the same thing.

As you say, there will be no "return" to Internet-1.0. and the
corporate internet will get uglier, devoid of mutuality, hate-filled
and ever more infested with sad little authoritarians trying to manage
it and turn it to their ends. Corporate Internet will keep growing
along with all of its arrogance, ignorance and indifference to truth,
humane technology or interpersonal life.

Without contradiction, the old Internet will also continue to grow,
existing largely beneath the interest of the new one. We'll be left
alone because the gangsters and governments can't be bothered to make
extra effort while there's votes and money to be made at the cattle
ranch. The more anybody tries to interfere with the independent,
participatory net, the more it becomes an Ideal, a "movement" even a
"religion". So don't poke it if you're wise.

Our old Internet will take on new guises, but remain a place where
people can post long-form accounts of their mountain hiking, recipes,
poems, stories about their grandmother and things not related to
money, narcissistic vanities, false ideals or creation of false
selves.

This will be a slow, quiet opportunity to grow some remarkable
technologies that will outlast the "new Internet" by centuries. Future
technologies to do with pseudonymous but responsible identity,
reputation, support, clean energy use, clear and accessible
information presentation, verifiability, shared ownership and
responsibility for hardware, censorship resistance, resilience
against cult leaders, demagogues, agitators and feudalism, and
projects for stability and long term archiving will grow in this
fertile ground.

All of this will fail in the new internet, because it must happen by
diktat, at enormous scale, in a hostile and ugly environment and for
motives of profit. The new internet must remain shallow, ephemeral and
glib to function at scale.

We may end up with two very distinct cultures or classes in the
digital future. Perhaps we ought to start giving them quite distinct
names.

Cheapskate
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 08:19:29am,

Lynne, thanks to Google, the temptation certainly is there to not post links to other websites (or at least to make them "nofollow" links). That is only one of several things Google's algorithm does to get personal website owners to play its game, even though they will ultimately only be harmed by doing so. That would make a good topic for an article.

Andy, I'm not sure I'm an optimist concerning the non-mainstream Internet. I think I'm still more of a realist. Eventually, enough people must wake up (as Lynne has), see the mainstream Internet in all its ugliness, and decide to look elsewhere online. I think that has already begun, and I expect it to accelerate. I just wish I could see how to reach more people with that message, but as Lynne said, all of us are fighting The Algorithm.

tnn2201
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 01:41:13pm,

My hope is that small web projects return power on the internet to the people. And this is exactly why so many oppose web3: it's designed to concentrate power in the hands of a few.

Cryptocurrency has mostly failed as currency, and exists as a speculative investment, where the only motivation to hold it is the hope that a greater fool will pay more for it.
There are hardly any web3 projects that don't rely on cryptocurrency in some way. And hence, most web3 projects merely exist to create value for people already rich in cryptocurrency, since these projects require the purchase of cryptocurrency to participate (thus giving rich cryptobarons the liquidity needed to cash out).

What's more, most web3 projects are hardly as decentralized as they claim, often requiring the use of a few proprietary services to work. Moxie Marlinspike's investigation of web3 is a good read, which demonstrates how centralized and locked-down web3 really is:

https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

While I believe some web3 projects are made from a sincere place, their creators have unfortunately taken the bait. This movement is not designed to open up the web, but only to make a few people very rich. The web3 influence on small web projects is toxic, and will only hurt our cause in the long run.

Cheapskate
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 04:44:44pm,

tnn2201,

Thanks for the comment and the link to Moxie Marlinspike's article. He makes some good points--chiefly that "decentralization", or Web 3.0, can be done right, and it can also be done wrong. However, I think that to assume that because it can be done wrong means that it has no value is a logical fallacy. I also think NFT's are a complete scam, but to compare them to ZeroNet, a somewhat-decentralized network, just because ZeroNet is blockchain based, would be to do ZeroNet an injustice. When done right, blockchain-based platforms can create real decentralization (when the developers are smart and want them to be decentralized). Unfortunately, I do agree with Moxie that the average person would not known enough to choose a truly decentralized "web 3.0" platform over a scammy centralized "web 3.0" platform. The bottom line is that saying that since NFT's are a scam, Web 3.0 is a scam, is an oversimplification that ignores good Web 3.0 networks. However, I have said in the past that just because a platform starts out decentralized, does not mean it will stay that way (IPFS being taken over by Cloudflare being an example), so I believe Web 3.0 and "decentralized" networks like ZeroNet are only temporary solutions. But, in real life, no solution lasts forever. Having said all this, I still believe that having your own personal website is a great way to help decentralize the web. And, so far, I have felt no need to move completely off the regular Internet to an alternate network like Gemini or ZeroNet.

Heike
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 06:27:55pm,

Internet censorship is a good thing. We need to keep fascist filth from infecting people, and allowing people to speak freely is objectively pro-fascist.

An internal company briefing produced by Google and leaked argues that due to a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the "American tradition" of free speech on the internet is no longer viable.

https://www.scribd.com/document/390521673/The-Good-Censor-GOOGLE-LEAK#from_embed

BeZerk
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 06:44:11pm,

I would call personal websites more 'D.I.Y. Internet' because it was more of a do-it-yourself, by definition the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. That's how I see how things where being made before the decade of 2010 came around, what was made then people would make a website as with any other material usually with time and put forward how they would see what their material would become, but later it became effortless and plain, which makes it sad really.

Cheapskate
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 06:51:56pm,

By the way, I think it is sad that I can't even make a comment on Hacker News about this article, because I've been banned. When someone else posts my articles there, many people want to read them, but when I post them, they are blog spam.

Michael@vivtek
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 08:59:50pm,

If it makes you feel better, I found my way here from HNN. Nice post.

dang
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 09:13:19pm,

>When someone else posts my articles there, many people want to read them, but when I post them, they are blog spam.

You have 5 total comments. Try commenting more and I'll let you post links to your site.

Steve Barnes
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 09:42:53pm,

Another heartening article of a familiar and welcome ilk. (I've just found the site – I'll share, add to RSS and check the other entries at leisure. Thank you for sharing the sentiments and the hope for the expression of individual thought and imagination.)

tnn2201
said on Jan 25th 2022 @ 10:31:23pm,

Thank you for the reply, cheapskate. I will admit, there are some sincere web3 projects that do try to be decentralized. I just dont see the technical reason why they need to rely on blockchain in most cases.

I understand that zeronet mostly relies on BitTorrent to distribute content, and bitcoin is used for signing and naming. Now, perhaps thats another narrow usecase where blockchain makes sense. But i worry that anything blockchains touch will eventually become a casino. I havent seen many people associate zeronet with the web3 buzzword, but its fair to point out that it makes use of blockchain and doesnt seem to be an outright scam.

Hoping the web grows smaller and smaller as the years go on! Thanks for maintaining this little site. :)

Dr Jochen L Leidner
said on Jan 26th 2022 @ 04:06:24am,

I miss the days of USENET news.

Of couse the newsgroups still exist,
but the activity level is no longer the same.

Cheapskate
said on Jan 26th 2022 @ 05:12:42am,

Heike, if you are being serious, then you and I have very different values systems.

dang, if I'm still allowed to make comments on Hacker News, I'll consider it.

tnn2201, you didn't mention that ZeroNet uses blockchain to assign addresses to ZeroNet sites. This makes DNS servers unnecessary. To me, this is the main value to ZeroNet of using blockchain, because it means ICANN cannot shut it down.

PassingThrough
said on Jan 26th 2022 @ 06:57:29pm,

There is a kind of a change in the breeze, lately, that I think is what you've caught hold of here. I'm old enough to have experienced the BBS and Usenet era just before it was eclipsed by WWW1, and when social media first appeared, wise enough to have instinctively avoided that. Even in the early days, of the books and the spaces and what not, before they became so overtly self serving, it was evident from their effects on my fellow human beings that this sort of thing was a Trap. And this trap is more than just social media. The only reason I have a Windows machine in the house at all anymore is due to online bill paying and shopping sites demanding the latest version of one of the Chosen Browsers. Alas, I was suckered by online bill payment, and long for the days of stamps. But anyway, that is our weak point: the browsers. If we want to keep our indie-net alive, we need some browsers that can be relied upon. They keep trying to burn ad blockers off the Chosen Ones, is it hard to imagine how that level of control might be used to keep the cattle in the corral?

Adam
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 01:43:19am,

Just yesterday I started working on a series of articles, "Why Host a Website" and "How to Cheaply Host a Website." Is it a coincidence or is there an emerging zeitgeist? We live on opposite sides of the world and only maybe browse the same websites.

But I disagree that expression on internet is becoming more restricted, we just choose to use restricted social media. These social media "corrals," a reason people use them is that posting and consuming media are equally easy, suddenly everyone is given a voice. To be able to express an opinion without any technical knowledge and have post personal post on equal footing as the WHO latest update, is the advantage/disadvantage of social media and it is freedom.

A contributing factor to this seemingly restricted internet is the expectation that everything must be free, as in free beer. Without paying, I do not expect facebook or twitter to not track, to not behave against user interests. Of course, they remove content they don't like it's their website. And I do not think government should create laws forcing companies to host or remove material based on their lawyers interpretation of the law, we just need to accept facebook for what it is, a mirror of a society we sometimes disagree with.

Thank you for the article, I've bookmarked cheapskatesguide
Adam from www.akjems.com

Cheapskate
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 05:25:37am,

PassingThrough, all the browsers using the same code is a huge problem. But, you can block advertisements by configuring your router to use the AdGuard DNS servers. Their website says they have moved to new IP addresses: 94.140.14.14 and 94.140.15.15 . Some people don't trust AdGuard, but they are a very easy solution for those who cannot set up a more complicated one like the Pihole.

Adam, having access to information on the Internet without giving up freedom and allowing ourselves to be corralled are two different problems with the same root cause. Avoiding the second only requires expending some effort to find better social media sites. Avoiding the first requires technical knowledge, but that is only a temporary solution. Edward Snowden predicted that eventually even that will not be enough.

Peter G
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 08:29:16am,

Well, reading some of your site has disposed of my lunch hour quite nicely (and no indigestion!).

I'm pre-web - pre-Internet actually - so can identify with your thoughts. I ran a BBS, then progressed(?) to the web. Now I run a personal web site on minimal hardware, at home, and it's lean enough to run on a Raspberry Pi if need be. I still have a gopher server. I'm rebuilding my site at the moment and have added a link to you. I look forward to being a regular visitor!

Cheapskate
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 09:25:39am,

Peter G., welcome and thanks for the link. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you in the future.

Francesco R.
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 11:03:25am,

Hi, I'm a software engineer with a passion for Internet history and I feel nostalgic for all the Old Internet things.
First of all, this is a great article!
I would put my two cents where you talk about Web3, blockchain and decentralization. I believe that decentralization as proposed by Web3 enthusiasts is very far from a kind of democratization of the Web, especially respect to how the Web was 15 years ago. The 20 years-old web was truly decentralized, because you could have your website hosted in plain html on a multitude of thin servers (thankfully we still can do it today). On the opposite, the idea of decentralization proposed by the blockchain leaves too much room for misunderstanding. Let me clarify a bit. Is it likely that a user may host a node of a blockchain on his a home pc? I think not. So where is the decentralization? Blockchains are decentralized because they run on multiple nodes that require high performance hardware, and those nodes are run by big player that are behind the blockchain (usually early adopters or the founders). They have control. I don't see a future where home users would host a node of a blockchain and, even worse: which blockchain? There are so many....
So, to me, saying that Web3 brings decentralization seems at least a great misinterpretation, if not a false claim. Moreover, just think thar every action on a blockchain involves use of tokens, being everything treated as a financial transaction. This means that in the Web3 you are able to do nothing without a wallet refilled with cryptocurrency. That's far, very far from the Web of the Old Internet.
Thanks for allowing me to join the discourse.

Cheapskate
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 12:22:45pm,

Francesco R., thanks for your comment. It helps me understand where those negative to blockchain networks are coming from. I think we have a misunderstanding. You are describing a BAD blockchain network design, where true decentralization does not really exist. I agree with you that this does not solve the problem of the centralized Internet.

Let me contrast what you have said by briefly describing a better blockchain network design, ZeroNet. Though it is not perfect, ZeroNet is designed to run on the computers of users while they are connected to the ZeroNet network, which consists of all users' computers who are connected at that moment. There is no central server. When you as an individual user visit a ZeroNet site for the first time, that site automatically downloads to your computer, and your computer becomes a "seeder" of that site. When other people want to connect to that site for the first time, their computers reach out to other seeder computers and download the site directly from them. Again, no central server. No cryptocurrency is required to run ZeroNet or to connect to any of the sites. I have been using ZeroNet for nearly 3 years, and I have never had to pay one penny (or one fraction of any cryptocurrency) to use it. I have also created 3 ZeroNet sites of my own and have never paid a penny for the priviledge of doing so. Having said this, I should explain that there are nuances. For example, you can delete any site from your computer that you want at any time, and your computer is then no longer a seeder for that site. Another is that ZeroNet requires torrent trackers (computers associated with the world-wide torrent system) to help the computers of ZeroNet users find seeder computers. This is a weakness of ZeroNet and prevents it from being fully decentralized. ZeroNet also has other problems; however, it is an example of a blockchain network that is fairly well designed. It mostly lives up to its promise to provide a decentralized network that is difficult for governments to disrupt. ICANN has no authority over ZeroNet, because ICANN's DNS system is replaced with cryptocurrency addresses for sites instead of domain names. These addresses are free and automatically assigned by the ZeroNet software when a user creates a site. I hope this helps to dispel some of the misunderstanding.

I have written three articles on ZeroNet for those who are interested in learning more. The first is https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/zeronet.html .

ab
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 04:21:37pm,

tnn2201, Cheapskate

According these FAQ (towards the end)

https://zeronet.io/docs/faq/

ZeroNet doesn't use a blockchain.

Adam

> a reason people use them is that posting and consuming media are equally easy,
suddenly everyone is given a voice. To be able to express an opinion without
any technical knowledge and have post personal post on equal footing as the WHO
latest update, is the advantage/disadvantage of social media and it is freedom.

This is one of the main reasons why people went to Facebook. I personally know
many people for which the simplest HTML is a too difficult technical thing.
Another reason is that social features bring you an audience, while old web and
blogging platforms didn't.

someone
said on Jan 27th 2022 @ 06:02:38pm,

super nice article!

there are some things which goverment and corporate have docked in and do a good job such as public administration and mobile banking. the latter one i myself have enjoyed it, i just click here and there also uploading some files and done.

nowadays, the most annoying things to me is the tracker & the way framework things employed by the Netizens/hostinger/content creator out there. the web now feel bloated and occasionally the content would not appear unless activating some scripts (lots of cases looking stupid to me!).

this day, html & css is "not enough" (even with plain JS) for some folks to just delivering the CONTENT.

"....websites without certificates issued by them are unsafe...."
this one is one of the most annoying things in this era, IMHO!

I hope, the authorities, corporates and Netizens reliaze, that tech is an aid for human being to make life easier not harder and walled.

I hope, the authorities, corporates and Netizens reliaze, where is the real "paradise" and "hell" one.

someone
said on Jan 28th 2022 @ 02:47:48am,

forgot to mentione this link on my comment:

https://unixsheikh.com/

Cheapskate
said on Jan 28th 2022 @ 03:44:51am,

ab, I read your reference. In response to the question of whether ZeroNet uses blockchain, it says,

"No, ZeroNet only uses the cryptography of Bitcoin for site addresses and content signing/verification. User identification is based on Bitcoin's BIP32 format.

Namecoin's blockchain is being used for domain registrations, however clients do not download the blockchain. Blockchain metadata is instead passed over the ZeroNet network."

I'm not sure what the difference is between blockchain and "cryptography of Bitcoin for site addresses". Perhaps that means there is no actual permanent blockchain ledger kept. Anyway, thank you for the correction. Hopefully, I'll remember this detail the next time this comes up.

Also, in response to, "Another reason is that social features bring you an audience, while old web and
blogging platforms didn't," I would say, not without a tremendous amount of work or a lot of money!

~ew
said on Jan 28th 2022 @ 01:10:35pm,

> Unfortunately, despite common goals, some on today's old Internet are hostile to blockchain technology.

ähm, now how exactly did blockchains come into this game? /me scratching my head ...

Wikipedia says:
> A blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, that are linked together using cryptography...

Well, I have yet to see a single problem, where a blockchain is a really clever solution. And before anyone feels like pointing out examples ... to my understanding, once seeded, the block chain file will only grow. It cannot shrink by design. It will, over time, carry 99% cruft some day. It will become too big to reside on most systems. This alone is reason enough for me to ignore blockchain technology.

Cheers,
~ew

fLaMEd
said on Jan 29th 2022 @ 02:27:29am,

cheapskate, was excited when I saw the title of this latest post when I refreshed the tab that I always have open on my iPad for your homepage.

I had a big grin on my face when I came to the end and saw myself quoted.

Big fan of your page and was great to see my own and others in the community linked in this post.

take care

~fLaMEd

Anonymous
said on Jan 29th 2022 @ 03:25:39am,

Honestly, most personal blogs aren't too interesting. Most of their owners are more concerned with "having their own place" than providing something of value and it comes across as a bit self-obsessive. Not that social media is any better in that regard.

Valuable(imo) websites have a purpose in mind, like this one.

Cheapskate
said on Jan 29th 2022 @ 05:34:04am,

Anonymous, searching through the old Internet for sites that appeal to you is, without a doubt, something of a treasure hunt. I have provided links to some of the sites I like and several blogrolls on my "resources" page, but ultimately only you can unearth those sparkling gems that cause you to await new content with eager anticipation, month after month, year after year.

fLaMEd
said on Jan 30th 2022 @ 03:57:55pm,

@anonymous this is exactly why I describe my homepage as a "collection of stuff that mean everything to me and probably nothing to you" ;)

ab
said on Jan 30th 2022 @ 04:42:08pm,

Cheapskate

> I'm not sure what the difference is between blockchain and "cryptography of Bitcoin for site addresses".

I presume that the double key algorithm used for ZeroNet addresses is the same that generates public and private keys for bitcoin accounts.

As for the blockchain, this is the simplest explanation I found:

1. A hash pointer tells where some information is. Together with the pointer is stored a cryptographic hash of the information.

For instance, I put a file somewhere for public download. My website publishes a link to this file together with its hash, to ensure the downloaded file is authentic. Whoever has an interest to spread a tampered version of my file must replace it and also replace my web page with a modified version. Two things to do.
Additionally, this hash pointer - the information on my website - may be signed, i.e. encrypted with a private key, and the file too. Encryption and the hash pointer provide two independent layers of security.

2. Hash pointers can be used to build other data structures. One of them is a blockchain, a list formed by a series of blocks, each one containing data and a pointer to the previous block in the list. If this pointer is a hash pointer, it says where the previous block is and what is its value. At the end of the list there is a hash pointer with the hash of the last block. Given such a list, adding, removing, modifying a block at a certain point (the one telling that my bitcoin address once received 1.000 BTC, at the beginning of times) means replacing all hashes involved from that point to the end.

Weedshaker
said on Jan 31st 2022 @ 04:45:54am,

And this is exactly why I wrote https://peerweb.site/ as an Interface to easily host content through WebTorrent, IPFS and/or WebRTC.

Here you can find more information about it: https://github.com/Weedshaker/PeerWebSite

Love this article! Power to the decentralized Web!

Cheapskate
said on Jan 31st 2022 @ 05:10:33am,

Thanks for the explanation ab.

Thank you
said on Feb 03rd 2022 @ 10:14:08am,

You are good writings

chino_brews
said on Feb 04th 2022 @ 12:12:47pm,

Thanks for this article, cheapskate! And I love Andy's comment!

I share your view on NFT, but sadly not your mildly optimistic view on a blockchain-based Web3/Web 3.0. Web3 is thus far funded by VCs (Andreesen Horowitz) and as a commenter noted, seems like "me-centralization" rather than de-centralization, i.e. recentralize around *me* so I can snipe the money that Meta/Facebook, Alphabet/Google, Amazon are currently making. And even if the blockchain and tokens were a reasonable solution for an ad- and tracking-free pay-to-use Web3, I believe using tokens/coins is far too complex and far too dangerous for your average Earthling, including for me (see "Ethereum is a Dark Forest" and other pieces explaining how most "DeFi" is designed to be a predatorial, adversarial system). The non-distributed ledger kept by my FDIC-insured, U.S. bank works just fine for me.

I subscribe to the ad-free, paywalled content I want, use a privacy-centric browser even if it means I can't go to certain places, and keep a link list (browser bookmarks) of sites that delight me.

The old internet continued to exist, but that voice is muted by the walled gardens, so only those who know to look outside the walled gardens see it. To be a maker in the "new Web 1.0" you don't even have to run your own server - home-rolled blogs hosted on github, gitlab, etc. using Hugo, Jekkyl, etc. and personal blogs on shared hosting are just as much a part of the personal web in my opinion as gopherspace or the old BBSs.

Cheapskate
said on Feb 04th 2022 @ 01:39:39pm,

chino_brews, thanks for the comment. I agree that personal blogs hosted on Github, Gitlab, Neocities, etc. are part of the "old Internet". The problem is that they have a gatekeeper that can easily de-platform them at any time. I think those who plan on having a personal blog for a long time should make an effort to acquired the skills necessary to do it right. Even using Yunohost on a home web server is a better solution than using someone else's server.

Bolkonskij
said on Feb 25th 2022 @ 11:16:16pm,

Great article! Got it via a friend (personal recommendations still work :-) ) and I got to say, you hit the nail on the head!

I share a lot of your thoughts and quietly started to drop out of the "modern corporate Internet". Just last week I deleted my Facebook account, last one remaining is Gmail. It's gonna be hard, 15 years of e-mail stored there... but i'll do that sooner than later.

I'm not a nostalgic luddite though. I closely watch developments on tech and even work in tech. From your article, I understand that you and me feel very much alike about the current state of the internet in that this is *not* the one we grew to know or love.

The "information superhighway" I felt so strongly about being beneficial for all of mankind, which would bring us together and make us better persons. (aka our 'naive belief' during the 90's, as you had put it).

I've been creating some websites using HTML 3.2 lately, hence keeping it open for just about anyone. I feel it's sort of a "gold standard" that allows visually somewhat appealing websites that will work on the oldest computers / lowest bandwith.

One of my projects being a personal archive for Apple's Quicktime movies (http://cornica.org) as I enjoyed those pioneering days of computer video on my Macintosh and somehow want to help in keeping this technology alive.

Even though I did not earn a penny from it, it was a very rewarding and creative process that I thoroughly enjoy(ed) and that helped me making some very new acquaintances. I honed my non-requested by employers HTML 3.2 + vanilla PHP skills and while doing so, I had the biggest fun. ;-)

As for finding the personalized web, I use a search engine called wiby.org. Are you guys aware of it? It just indexes personal websites with no commercial intent, most of which still being maintained.

It brings back what you called the "exploration" feature of the old internet. You learn about topic you never knew you'd like to know. From how fission reactors work (via website of a Canadian nuclear scientist) to scientific glass-blowing for laboratories and many more.

Maybe that feature was what really dragged me in the most. The free, unregulated access to information I never knew I'd be interested in. (I would have never searched it)

Which gets me thinking - what I'd really like to see is sort of a campaign for a Web 3.0 (or Web 1.1, as some call it) to simply raise awareness in public and serve as a starting point for people browsing the personal, true internet. Including offering some good PR and materials to spread the word.

So how about getting it going?

BTW - Bookmarked your website and will definitely check back regularly.

Cheapskate
said on Feb 26th 2022 @ 06:11:00am,

Bolkonskij, I always enjoy hearing from someone who feels as I do about the old Internet and is doing something about those feelings. I am aware of Wiby.org. I think my favorite for searching the old Internet is currently infotiger.com.

I do not know anything about campaigns, but I am doing what I can to raise awareness. If you have specific ideas, feel free to share them with me via email.

Ike
said on May 15th 2022 @ 09:47:22am,

A lot of people are wary about the use of blockchains because they have proven to be incredibly bad for the environment. While I agree with many of the points of this article, love the in depth history of the internet (born in the late 90s, I missed a lot), and it was excellently written, I think it's important for us to return to the original cyberspace without having to rely on something that created something as harmful as NFTs and other cryptocurrency schemes (other tools for corporations to use against the better judgement of the average netizen). They use a ridiculous amount of energy and entire forests are destroyed just to create space for the blockchain technology in some cases. However, these are just my own thoughts.

Let's continue to do what we can to fight back against the monster corporate conglomerate that we now call "the Internet".

Lyxodius
said on Jul 20th 2022 @ 03:41:33am,

Oh, look, I can leave a comment without registering, and there is no content filter or anything!
Now that's something great that makes my day!

Rynn
said on Feb 04th 2023 @ 02:12:41pm,

Quite the nice write up! I've also found myself getting pulled back into the old internet (though I tend to use the term 'smol internet' since I was first drawn in by the Gemini protocol). I was born in the mid-80s so I got to see quite a large chunk of the early days of the information super highways before they added tolls to most of the lanes.

Even before I learned of the small web, I had completely turned off social media as the amount of toxicity and lack of real conversations just became too much. While web 2.0 isn't going anywhere and I'm almost positive they will ruin the possibilities of web 3.0, I do believe there is a huge amount of potential for the smol internet to really flourish as an altnerative for those want it.

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The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back

The Internet of the Early 1990's

The Internet of Today

The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back

Final Words

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