The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

I have never understood people who mourn the death of the "old" internet because I do not feel I have lost it. Particular communities come and go, as they always have, but I have found that the I can find the same sorts of gathering places for the same kinds of people I always have - in about the same numbers too.

The thing that has changed is that a huge swath of new people have come online and, though some of what brought them online is wider access to connectivity, a lot of what brought them online are new kinds of communities. They showed up for social media and most of them just aren't that interested in the things that made up the "old" internet.

I put "old" in quotes because people have kept and maintained the parts they love. You can still play MUDs, you can still visit BBSes, people still run Hotline servers[1]! Many of these communities have changed because the world has changed: lots of people who played MUDs in 1990 have moved on to other online games, but lots have not! Critically - tools have continued to be developed. You can use IRCCloud (and be told it makes you a bad IRC'er), you can play MUDs on your phone, etc. These communities have changed with the times and improved for it.

My sense is that the absolute number of people who are involved in these communities has dropped, but not actually by that much? Maybe half as many people play MUDs now as they did at the peak - but it's a steady half. I think of it like the communities around vinyl or around film photography: less central than they once were, but healthy and vital.

I am really glad that people who were not online at all during their peak are discovering these older forms. We have kept them for good reasons. But don't call it a comeback, they have been here for years.

[1] https://hotline.fandom.com/wiki/Clients

i think they are referring what we use to be allowed to say in chat channels and on forums. it was a lot more raw, a lot of offended people starting getting online and treating the internet like it was real life, part of the beauty of the internet was how non-regulated it was, granted the quality has gotten better, safer spaces for things like business, finance and other sensitive information but we also lost the jokes that the internet use to have, on the main channels at least. back in the day you could get kicked from a mainstream irc channel but it too a lottttt to get banned from an irc network or even an online forum. which granted you can still find sub communities like you mention that still cater to hacking, off jokes and crazy information but it’s not tolerated on the main channels of communication like before, which is fine for people who weren’t into that stuff because it didn’t change for them. but overall there has been changes, not terrible but def not the same as irc/usenet/bbs’s during their hayday. information was widely accessible but a lot of it is a paywall these days, also torrenting was a lot more common and i could call someone a moron without getting flagged. but yeah we still got some freedom and there are better quality services in some ways, i guess it just depends on your personality and how much it has limited expressing ones self authentically.