Asklemmy

It being much less busy with the general populace and corporation

I don't miss anything about it. And certainly not the modem dial sounds I knew from memory/intuitively.

Imagine having to dial into the internet and having to wait 30s with beeping and whooshing sounds.

/e: It seems OP question was stated more broadly than the linked article addresses and people seem to reply to.

I miss the days before it became all corporatized. The days of the early world wide web and gopher made the internet a whole lot of fun. I had a blast with usenet and internet relay chat as well. Even email was freaking awesome. I remember getting excited when I'd receive messages. Thankfully that excitement is getting rekindled due in a large part to corporate's own hubris. The growth of the fediverse is making the internet fun again.

I remember when you could use a credit card generator (I actually learned whatever "algorithm" to create valid Visas as a party trick) and sign up for porn sites for free. Then you could download a crappy, compressed, ten second video if you waited for what seemed like forever.

Now that I think about it, that aspect of it was terrible. Thank goodness I'm alive now and didn't die before free HD porn was readily available on tap.

I do miss ICQ. And running BBS softwares.

Did anyone else play digimon quest to save the net? That was one of the first online games I played on dial up.

Java chat applet embedded in niche websites

I loved all the creative free geocities and angelfire websites other people made for their cyberpets and fandoms.