I miss the wild west, sue me. My entire life wasn't on whatever system I was using, so it wouldn't have mattered if someone messed it up. I don't miss the hardware of the time, but at least the web wasn't sterilized and owned by a few companies.
Correct, today’s internet has been taken over by companies and search engines by seo spam. But if there was anyone left enjoying tue good ole days of lawlessness, irc would still be a thing.
I don't know where you went, but there are still plenty of people using IRC. Not as many as were in the past, but it's still popular enough with the crowd of people I hang around.