survivor bias coupled with the fact that there were a lot more blogs back then. So with a lot more content, you have more great content as well as more crap content but what survives is the great content.

I came here searching for a similar comment. I don't think it's just survivorship bias.

I think it's a combination of:

1) Social media lowering the barrier to entry so much as to stop new good blogs from coming up (rather than simply posting to social media)

2) Social media favouring first image then short form video content hosted on their own CDN

3) The content farms designed for SEO absolutely obliterating the idea that you could make money from advertising on your blog

It's hard to really understand the tragedy element of tragedy of the commons and enclosure. Like I feel the gross injustice of it all but I never got to experience the loss. But the destruction of the early (capital I) Internet is something that certainly causes me a lot of pain.

I feel like for Zoomers talking to older nerds about the Internet et cetera must be like talking to a Gen Xer about the second Summer of Love or the Boomers about the first, but it was really just that much better.