Like fuck all the proprietary junk and versioning, and just have a bare bones HTML ASCII extranet designed to be simple and without any bugs to patch? Obviously a naive question.
But seriously, the 56k dialup world with Napster GeoCities and AOL Instant Messenger was better. Add capacitive touch screens, current data throughput infra, and lithium batteries to 1999 and we are peak Matrix internet territory. Yahoo and net navigator were better than chrome stalkerware and google digislaver fascism.
For all y’all talking about the old private internet, it’s having a bit of a renaissance. Neocities is on of the big ones, but lots of people are straight up selfhosting them too. It’s not like you actually need anything more than a phone to run a static website for the tens of visitors you might get each month.
Here’s an example of one. Check the post dates. And the webrings. And the Glitter. And the, well, you get the point.