I do wonder if we’re going to see some websites popping up that kind of hit the reset button on social media and go back to smaller communities of folks with something in common.

I kind of miss the days of actually having online conversations with folks you know are real people (not bots), that aren’t trying to be an influencer, or get famous, or some how many money off your interactions.

Check out the gemini protocol: https://geminiprotocol.net/

It kinda fills that niche of the "old web".

Project Gemini

The main downside is that you need a specific browser, or an extension for your average browser, to load gemini sites.

And they purposely hobbled certain things people want, like inline links and images. Some clients will do it anyway, but it’s against the collective wishes of the developers.

If I wanted to track people on Gemini, I could totally do it. It’d just be in a more server-to-server way than how its evolved on HTTP (pixel trackers and such).