Many aspects of the internet have improved. For all its issues YouTube is better now than it was ten years ago... at least, given the way I use it and with the curation I apply. There are plenty of other things that have improved too.

However, what used to be a diversity of communities has been horrifically, horrifically crushed into a vastly less diverse set and it's not just nostalgia saying so. Everyone has been herded into centralized systems all of which are so large that they have significantly converged into the same thing, whether you're on Reddit or Facebook or X, despite the superficial differences and the various reactions people may have to various elements of that list.

My local BBS, run by high school students for the local high school students, had picnics. It's been a long time since I was a member of a community that could do something like that routinely. And to the extent you want to say well jerf that's obviously because..., the things that come after "because" are the point I'm making here. I'm not mystified by the effect. Nor is it the only thing that has changed for the worse, it's just a nice little snapshot that is easy to ponder.

Everything on the internet is structured to constantly make things bigger and bigger. But there's a time and place for not bigger.