What do you miss about the old Internet? – 16 ways the web of yesteryear was better

Dominic Carter. Updated January 5th, 2025

From how it’s strapped rocket boosters onto extremism to how it has fried your attention span, there’s a lot to hate about the internet.

But it wasn’t always like this. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time before TikTok videos and YouTube ads, a time when the internet was weird and fun and niche. This is an era that zernion clearly feels nostalgic for, as they turned to the people of r/AskReddit to ask this question…

What do you miss about the old Internet?

Here are the best replies which will have you yearning for those dulcet dial-up tones …

‘Back when Google genuinely helped you find what you were looking for, without having to wade through a sea of ads and irrelevant sponsored links.’
-Luxorixa

‘When it felt like a cozy, chaotic neighborhood instead of a corporate shopping mall.’
-AutumnBryant32

‘People making content for the fun of it and not for profit.’
-im_a_reddituser

‘When influencers weren’t a thing.’
-liljoxx

‘The popularity of forums.’
-ronchee1

‘Back in the day, basic bitches couldn’t figure out that whole modem/computer/internet thing. So it was a sea of people who were at least smart enough to follow some basic directions. It was glorious.’
-anonlaw

‘It was nice when you had to go to the corners of the internet to find wild conspiracies, now I flip on Tik Tok and I am inundated with things like “this fog we are seeing is poison from the government meant to make us sick”.’
-Superb_Item6839

‘No ads on YouTube.’
-faith6274

‘You could get into heated arguments with people and nobody cried to the internet janitors or tried to doxx you. It was like a virtual bar fight and it was awesome.’
-Abdelsauron

10.

‘I miss not having to make an account for literally everything.’
-riffraffmcgraff

11.

‘I liked the barrier to access. It was technically challenging and costly to get online. The internet was smaller and Yahoo’s approach to a human organized directory was a reliable source of quality links. The worst part of the Internet back then was AOL, but Facebook is the same thing fully fleshed out.’
-torklugnutz

12.

‘How carefree it was. We would post random selfies and videos whenever just for fun. That was all it was, fun. Now it’s a whole social structure.’
-WeaknessDry3160

13.

‘Websites. There were thousands and thousands of independent, goofy websites people created as unique passion projects. We have largely funneled most activity to a few forums and social networks, which have homogenized content a great deal.’
-breakwater

14.

‘Internet memes had a much longer shelf life in the 2000s. People would be talking about videos like Numa Numa, Evolution of Dance, Chocolate Rain and Here It Goes Again for months on end and we liked it. And it would be a niche thing that was for people that were in the know – like “you saw that on the internet? That’s cool!”
I simply cannot fathom the breakneck speed these kids cycle through memes these days.’
-thegeecyproject

15.

‘If you wanted something, you’d go to a website specifically made for the that thing and it specializes in it
Now it’s almost basically just youtube.’
-jairom

16.

‘The “EEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR” every time i turned it on’
-GarbageWild4836

RighteousPanda25 went racing off down memory lane. Not sure whether it’s ROM or RAM.

“The old internet (90s, early 2000s) was really an escape from the real world.

It’s so embedded in our lives at the moment it feels like second nature, we don’t even realize it (or we do and take it for granted). But back then you had to access the internet by means of the family computer (or if you were lucky like my friend Sam, you had your own in your room where you and your friends could watch the most insane things ever and download fake nudes of Britney Spears which I may or may not have put on a floppy disc to take back to my internet-less computer).

It took more effort to log on, so it felt more personal. Everything was new, too. Forums, MSN Messenger (or AOL chat), livejournal, hell even myspace towards the later years. These were all new ways to communicate with people from the outside world, and it was exciting for the time.

Browsing websites seemed to be more interesting as well. When I want to know about something, I google it and I’m done. Back then it was the same, but for me I was more apt to check out video game/music websites that ranged from professionally made to built by some random individual who just wanted to create something. It felt like its own place, separate from your daily life.

I miss that.”

Source Reddit Image Unsplash