Why there’s so little left of the early internet
I&#x27;m not disagreeing with any of this. But I think there&#x27;s additional perspective to be had.<p>I see a lot of conversation about early Internet and the health of the Internet. I think some of this is just because those of us who remember it, are starting to ache over it a bit for all kinds of reasons, one of which is because that&#x27;s what old people do.<p>Today I got lunch with my 17 year old nephew. I asked him about what he does on the Internet and if he misses the &quot;old Internet&quot;.  First off, he has no context of what the old Internet is. He doesn&#x27;t really care nor seem to feel like he&#x27;s missing out.  Second, he showed me what he mainly does. Basically it was a handful of group chats via Signal and WhatsApp, a whole bunch of web comic websites, and some YouTube series.<p>I felt like a dad of a teenager for a fleeting moment and my generalized conclusion was that he&#x27;s consuming a ton of independently developed creative content. I was actually pretty proud of what the Internet looks like for him.<p>I asked him about curation and the ability to hold on to his favourites. How does he ensure that something he loves isn&#x27;t gone in 10 years?  This concept really didn&#x27;t seem to matter to him. His perspective seemed to be that there&#x27;s so many webcomics and the &quot;memes&quot; and conversations he has with his friends are ever evolving, there&#x27;s not really a lot of time to care about the old stuff.  Made me wonder if attachment to nostalgia may be fleeting as well.<p>Is this the full story? Of course not. But it made me feel a bit better about things and a bit more skeptical of the doomsaying I often hear and sometimes take part in.