I miss the old internet, hanging out in irc channels, posting in small forums, wasting an afternoon jumping from niche site to niche site, trying to track where you were in a haze of dozens of browser windows.

A set of places, and people. True connection.

But even the modern web held some resemblance of that.

As many friends as I met in weird irc channels and niche forums, I met similar numbers on Twitter.

Now all those warm, welcoming places exist only in the past.

Part of me hopes we can recapture some of that...but I fear those days are gone. They were a beautiful bubble destined to pop.

Where once stood a diverse sprawling forest filled with mysteries now stands a managed woodland. Same raw materials, an entirely different experience.

We are not the same world. We are not the same people. Our relationship to this thing has changed.

I fully realize that I am getting older and nostalgic.

But I was once young, and naive, and truly believed this thing would save us.