I miss the weird old web. Handcrafted html. Webrings. View counters. Frames. Works best in Netscape Navigator. Watching pictures download line by line. Java applets. Chat rooms. There were certainly problems, but the whole space felt limitless and fun - not just repackaged corporate, SEO, and ad riddled garbage...
The good old days of dialling up, searching for something in Dogpile or Excite and not getting slammed by endless articles full of referral links and SEO spam. You’ve truly hit a nostalgia nerve for me there and made me raise a smile.
The worst I remember back then was random icq spam…