[hex4def6]

I agree with all of this, but would add: The "social media" we see isn't the entire landscape. There are lots of small communities hanging out in spaces like unpopular subreddits, random internet forums, discord servers. It's just the 10GW burning sun that is popular social media can feel like it drowns that all out. And, I think there's a bit of a nagging feeling of irrelevance that can creep in when you're in these niches.

In the old days, you were small groups exploring the uncharted. You were in the minority because you were part of a group of pioneers, and I think there was a sense of optimism and excitement around that. I think a lot of the magic is gone precisely because tech is now ubiquitous and mainstream.

I can't help but wonder if it's my nostalgia as well, but I feel like 1995 - 2005 was the golden decade. It was at the point that technology was actually good enough to enable a lot of stuff (broadband, large storage media, etc), but it was still enough in its embryonic state that the novelty was still there.

[wormius]

Good point. The early exploration did make it a lot smaller. I think moving to where people end up adding IRL friends instead of "random strangers with similar interests" (I still think Livejournal had the best way of finding online people and building those relationships as people and not just meme-sharers/reacters to dopamine). I use another age-old online community that's been around since before 2000, and with good moderation and community support, while it's been up and down, generally "keeps the faith" with the users. And that's a pretty good timeline I think 95-2005.