‘What’s a dead feature of the internet you still secretly mourn?’ – 17 sorely-missed parts of the online world

Do you remember the dulcet tones of dial-up internet? If so, then you may miss some of the online world’s other old quirks.

It may sound odd to younger readers, but the internet wasn’t always the algorithm-fuelled content hellscape it currently is. It used to be a creative frontier full of bizarre and brilliant features, all of which have been remembered thanks to this question posed by SylphCelestine:

‘What’s a dead feature of the internet you still secretly mourn?’

And here are the top replies from r/AskReddit…

1.
‘Not having to enter my email address for access to “free” information.’
-tinydickdoctor

2.
‘Written instructions for solving a problem instead of a video with 80% fluff.’
-Equivalent-Wedding21

3.
‘Message boards.

‘So much better than social media feeds.’
-saintsithney

4.
‘There being a huge amount of individual websites run by a person who just loved something, bird watching, a super fan for a certain 80’s cartoon, community sites for a game series. It feels like there are only 4 or 5 websites any more, facebook, instagram, tiktok, amazon, etc. Why would you start your own website when you can just post on instagram and gain followers?

‘The internet felt so different in the 90’s and early 2000s. Less owned and ran by corporations and more an open space for people to do whatever. Yeah, I miss that feature.’
-Geek_King

5.
‘Internet Relay Chat being full of actual people instead of script-bots’
-sinographer

6.
‘Blogs that were for fun and not about making money or having a brand. Like Livejournal and similar’
-reasonablecuttlefish

7.
‘Being able to google a phone number that called you and actually finding the caller name instead of a dozen fake names like Shifty McGooglephart linked to it.’
-tangcameo

8.
‘The absence of algorithms.

‘I want to click on things without seeing those things in my feed over and over again.’
-Convallaria4

9.
‘I genuinely miss internet forums. Before everything got turned into feeds and algorithms, you could just hang out in these weird little online corners with people who actually cared about the same obscure stuff you did. It wasn’t about followers or going viral. It was just connection, arguments, inside jokes, and long rambling threads that somehow made you feel like you belonged somewhere.’
-PearlyZephyr