I think that's revisionism. Social media existed before online advertising. Usenet was quite massive and vibrant, countless IRC servers were maintained by volunteers, web-based forums covered pretty much the same ground as Reddit does today. All supported by the goodwill of individuals, non-profits, and businesses such as ISPs that actively wanted the internet to be interesting because they were making money by selling access to it.

The thing that changed in the mid-2000s was that we found ways to not only provide these services, but extract billions of dollars while doing it. Good for Mark Zuckerberg, but I doubt the internet would be hurting without that.

> All supported by the goodwill of individuals, non-profits, and businesses ...

That goodwill seems to be in short supply since... hmmm the mid 2000's (rough guess). And goodwill like that seems to be honestly not even understood by the generation(s)* since then.

* Saying "generations" (plural) there because we've had quite a few people go through their formative years during this time and not just a single clearly defined generation.

The internet was absolutely better without that. I arrived after the original Eternal September, but there have been more and more until now everyone is perpetually online 24/7.

Now fucking everything about the world is a hustle to monetize every possible nook and cranny around content. There isn't even content anymore, it's nearly all AI slop as a substrate to grow ads on.

I am nostalgic for the era when I found "punch the monkey" irritating. People used to make websites as a labor of love.