Not everything being about profit
Not being 1000% about data mining
No god damn pop up’s. Every fucking site I go to takes like minimum of 6 clicks to get rid of useless windows
Ads All.The.Time. At this point, if your ad even remotely annoys me, I will go out of my way NOT to use your product.
Real people. So much online interaction is with bots now.
Being able to believe more things. It used to be pretty apparent when you were looking at a computer modified image. With all the deepfakes, bots, AI, etc I assume absolutely nothing is real or accurate info.
Info. Like useful info. Secondary, niche communities you could relate to.
Yet.
Call me pessimistic, but with meta wanting to be here, it’s likely to ultimately be ruins/commoditized too. Eventually. It’ll be great while it lasts.
To be fair, I only came online late 90s and all we had was Internet Explorer, no Adblock and a constant barrage of popups, ads and toolbar installers and even child porn. I remember downloading one song and having to close 20 windows.
The lack of ways for cooperations to gather information about internet users.
Websites run by ordinary people, about things they’re interested in. Explanations in text instead of monetized YouTube videos dragged out so they can cram more adverts in. Decentralization, with lots of little hosts and sites instead of large walled gardens of corporately owned “content”. The absence of the concept of “content”. Places where people would chat just because they enjoyed talking to each other. Email that wasn’t mined for details of your personal life by megacorporations. Fascism still being universally reviled.
Yeah, I miss finding some very barebones website called like “Gary’s Favorite Garlic Breads”, just run by Gary, who isn’t trying to turn a profit or be an influencer. He just loves garlic bread and wanted to share.
I work with Gary. He still likes to share, all the time, about everything. He talks a lot. F Gary
All those old websites with basic html were golden. Not always in quality, but in heart.
Net neutrality