‘Crude, Ugly, But Heartfelt’
Setting aside that the “early internet” had no hyperlinks (this is the problem with everyone having grown to conflate “internet” and “web”, and I’m always really picky about linguistic specificity), Rebeccah Toh has a nice look back at the early days of the web and its “feeling of childish excitement and this sense that really interesting things were waiting to be discovered just around the corner, a hyperlink or two away” — back before play gave way to monetization.
I know we can never time travel back to the days before we lost our internet innocence, but we can remind ourselves that we always have the permission to be hobbyists and amateurs, whether on the internet or not, and that we never need to feel guilty spending ungodly amounts of time playing and tinkering and being immersed in whatever we’re interested in. In fact I cannot think of a better way to live, to be always curious and having fun.