It's absolutely true that the Internet isn't what it used to be, but I'm thinking right now about all the bright spots that still are. Wikipedia, yeah it's got its problems when you get to the Hot Topics, but you can also get lost for hours reading about different types of sand, or the way popular clothing fashions shifted during the 18th century. AO3 can deliver you novel-length stories featuring the characters you already love but now they're fucking. Itch.io is bursting with weird and unique and uncorporate games that cost less than a sandwich. And here we are right here and now on a site that's specially designed to be like "what if social media, but all the people were real and the rules made sense."
And weird little personal sites do still exist! They're harder to find and that's a god damn shame, but it's not like people with extremely niche interests and a spare $5/month for basic hosting stopped at any point.
IDK. I don't disagree with all the complaints that the Internet has gotten so death-spiraled in grubbing for fractional cents that we yearn for the days when the kitchen cleaning life hacks on Buzzfeed were actually kind of useful, but. The reason we're still here isn't just Skinner-boxing our way through social isolation and executive dysfunction. There are still a lot of kinds of sand to learn about.
