Something a lot of HNers seem to forget is that people used to build websites just for kicks. You like DragonballZ? You make a DragonballZ page on Geocities just for the hell of it. No adsense, no Google Analytics, no search-engine optimization or newsletter or investor pitch... that part of the early web seems to really have faded, and it's a pity.
Here's a screen shot of a website I never finished from 2003. Frontpage, tables, 3 gifs, ms paint graphics... this site had the works: https://imgur.com/Lulenom
