alt Hacker News> I really do miss the internet before the 2nd and 3rd waves of "Eternal September" (Facebook then Smartphones)
Very apt. These two things did really make the internet a lot worse. I would even add AI as the 4th wave, with all the captchas and slop we now need to deal with :-(
Usenet still exists, and ironically, the eternal September has sort of reversed since now nobody uses it outside a few weirdos.
For a free connection (no binaries) see eternal-september.org