I got my first computer right at the end of the dotcom bubble era but before the social network era. As I remember it, search engines (including Google) returned way more semi-random results, and seemed to give less weight to big-brand websites. So even in page 1 or 2 you would get links to small websites, often published by individuals. There was SEO spam but it seemed more overt and hence, more avoidable (it wasn't the kind of content that's ostensibly original, but made specifically to rank well and get ad money.)
After a while, blogs became a viable way to find interesting content - bloggers often published commentary on stuff they'd seen.
YouTube reminds me of this flow sometimes - you can watch mildly interesting stuff for hours - but it seems increasingly optimized for a different flow, so it recommends stuff that's not exactly interesting, but meets some business criteria. Wikipedia too, but it lacks the different voices/tones/styles that you can see in different websites.
Partly because of this background, FB never had me - I was partial to Twitter exactly because it kept this "Internet as a separate place with interesting stuff to see" feeling. FB wanted credentials, in-grouping, established traditions.
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I got my first computer right at the end of the dotcom bubble era but before the social network era. As I remember it, search engines (including Google) returned way more semi-random results, and seemed to give less weight to big-brand websites. So even in page 1 or 2 you would get links to small websites, often published by individuals. There was SEO spam but it seemed more overt and hence, more avoidable (it wasn't the kind of content that's ostensibly original, but made specifically to rank well and get ad money.)
After a while, blogs became a viable way to find interesting content - bloggers often published commentary on stuff they'd seen.
YouTube reminds me of this flow sometimes - you can watch mildly interesting stuff for hours - but it seems increasingly optimized for a different flow, so it recommends stuff that's not exactly interesting, but meets some business criteria. Wikipedia too, but it lacks the different voices/tones/styles that you can see in different websites.
Partly because of this background, FB never had me - I was partial to Twitter exactly because it kept this "Internet as a separate place with interesting stuff to see" feeling. FB wanted credentials, in-grouping, established traditions.