The real internet, is long gone.

[MisterSpock]

I remember what it was like to talk to people, share interest with them as a preteen from places all over the world I'd never goto. As a kid in a small midwest town, I could tell someone the next day I talked with a friend from brazil, or spain or germany about movies, music, PC games or even just the trials of our age group with regard to parents, school or social circles. This was so amazing, it was liberating. And the real beauty of it, was that for something so broad, it was a small group of people that seemed to have found such a broad, but small, community.

Even the early commercial aspects where still pretty "exclusive" the birth of it all still had some magic. The early companies fighting it out to have their name at the head of an emerging community still had some idea of the true nature of it all. Then it just went all to shit.