I have this sense that older techies are frustrated with what the Internet has become and younger folks just shrug their shoulders and say “meh”. This is a case where always having the Internet is a liability. Experiencing the Internet only after it was relatively well formed does not provide experience of what the originators envisioned and what those of us who wrote html when it was first possible to operate a web server and offer your own web content imagined. Yes, we really did run our own servers and I think I thought things would get s little easier and everyone with a computer would soon do the same thing.
Things changed. Running your own server became more challinging because of hackers. Free services made posting your own content incredibly easy as long as you are fine with giving your content to a service and having the service benefit from ads and harvesting your and your viewers’ personal information.
Perhaps I have found a way to explain the vibe (does anyone still say that) of the early days. John Perry Barlow passed away in February. Barlow was an Internet pi0neer and word man for the Grateful Dead. Back in the day, tech folks were also something else as well. Barlow’s facility in expressing himself enabled him to author “The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.’ I encourage to read or listen (the audio) is toward the of the content from the preceding link. Yes, the declaration was naive. However, we are presently on such a different and negative path.