is it the "democratization of publication and a liberation of information" we miss or the authenticity that came from a lack of polish

there was more personality from an era of tech-naivety. sadly thats almost all gone.

It was the way it hadn't been financially optimized to hell yet.

Basically, the web, today, is roughly 99.999% spam. This wasn't the case in 1995. In 1995 it was mostly ham.

Spam is any media that is created with a higher importance placed on making money than on making the media enjoyable.