Remember Friendster? How about MySpace?
Maybe downloading music from LimeWire rings a bell?
Those are just a few of the things that I remember from being online between the years of 2000-20009.
And AOL, of course…
But those days are long gone and now in 2020 we’re enjoying a whole new batch of websites, apps, bells, and whistles.
AskReddit users shared what they miss about that wonderful era of the Internet, 2000-20009. Let’s see what they had to say.
1. Not anymore…
“Back in the day, anything you did on the internet, stayed on the internet.
It was clearly separate from your daily life, and most people treated it that way.
Nowadays, people are way too enmeshed with their social media that they feel no distinction between it and real life.”
2. Blogs the old way.
“The blogs.
In 2000 people hadn’t really caught onto the idea of monetizing social media so the people writing blogs were just writing them because they felt they had something interesting/funny to share.
You’d have some completely normal guy just writing about funny stuff that happened that day at his work, with no expectation of being paid for it, no flashy site, no product promotion, just good content.
Obviously that still exists, but the good stuff gets very slick and loses the honesty of some guy’s side project when it becomes a job in of itself.”
3. What I miss…
“I miss:
– YouTube when it was just people uploading their crazy stuff rather than professionally made shows.
– Ebay when it was mostly just people selling stuff they didn’t want rather than commercial online businesses.
– Facebook when it was just connecting with people you knew and sharing snippets of your life rather than everyone trying to push their political views on their friends.”
4. They’re everywhere.
“The lack of influencers.
Did anybody else notice how much everybody tries to look perfect in every possible way.
If you go back in 90’s or early 2000’s, internet exposure was non existent. Guys like Gates, Bezos, Musk, Tony Robbins and many other looked just like your ordinary guy.
Nowadays, Tony Robbins, bulked up, wears clothes that fits him. Gates doesn’t wear big 20 cm glasses, Bezos bulked up and shaves his head.
The reason why i mention these individuals is because you can find on internet difference between them in early 2000’s and now, they didn’t started it but they are sure the one who follow that path like many other.”
5. Used to be good…
“I badly miss early Cracked.
I went back there recently and it’s horrible.
The articles are either pictures submitted by readers, or one or two paragraphs about a “mind blowing fact” that everybody already knows.”
6. The good old days.
“Online message boards were way more niche and felt like more of a community.
In the early 2000s, I used to post on a message board for a random website for the band Staind.
There are probably 10 of us total, and we were all regulars. I got to know them better than anyone I’ve ever conversed with on a larger forum, even though I never met any of them in real life.”
7. It was good.
“Peak Last.fm was truly great.
I discovered plenty of artists and there was a great community.”
8. Working it out.
“The sh*tty but well meaning quality.
Younger people may not remember or weren’t there before YouTube became basically internet TV. Back in the day, people were filming on their bad laptop cameras, on their bed in terrible lighting.
It made me feel like I was getting to actually know someone and enjoy their content, whereas now, its SO airbrushed and face tuned, it’s no longer appealing.”
9. The Wild West.
“The freedom.
It was the wild west, absolutely anything went.
Now that corporations have taken over, everything is much more polished, average production values are much higher, UIs and general web page design are 1000x more user friendly, but the freedom is gone.
Genuine passion projects are few and far between, it’s all about just making people watch as many ads as possible, and anything perceived to potentially damage the bottom line is quickly buried, if not outright extinguished.”
10. Stickers.
“Me and my cousin used to exchange Happy Tree Friends stickers in Yahoo Messenger.
I miss those days.”
11. It was fun.
“Learning basic HTML to load as many moving parts, songs and videos onto my MySpace page.”
12. It was a lot different.
“The old New Grounds vibe, everybody just made sh*t and people watched it and it was amazing.
Nowadays it feels that everything has to be amazing quality and everybody is subscribed only to the best people and you don’t have to go through waves of sh*t.
I mean I get it but there was something magical about finding something nice once in a while, and have so many people just trying it out and easily submitting new videos.
With youtube that barrier just feels higher.”
13. No more Java.
“Can we seriously stop with all the JavaScript?
There was this beautiful time when networks and computers had gotten better, but we were still building in basic HTML/CSS and things started feeling fast.
Now it takes me 5 minutes to load a single YouTube page.”
14. To be young again…
“I do miss the excitement and “newness” of it all.
It was an exciting time to be young, it felt like a digital revolution.”
Now we want to hear about your memories!
In the comments, tell us what you miss from this era of the Internet.
Please and thank you!
