I was thinking about this the other day, while loading music onto my modded iPod. If I could go back in time and stick a pin in tech growth, it would be 2006, before the iPhone came along. Don’t get me wrong, I think the explosion in smartphones that came after the first iPhone is broadly good and has the ability to be democratising. But that’s not really what shook out.

The world in 2006 had digital cameras and small, portable music players. We had SMS for easily staying in touch with each other, and we did have smartphones - just not as smart as they are now. From a communication perspective, we mostly had what we needed. Hell, by 2006 3G connections were pretty universal, so we could do video calling if we had a phone that supported it. Having a bunch of devices that all did specific things meant that we spread our reliance around a number of companies. Now, with our camera, MP3 player, computer, and communication device all being controlled by one company, if that company turns to shit we have to jump to a less shitty firm, but we have to abandon all of the conveniences to which we’ve grown accustomed.

As someone who recently jumped from 15 years of iOS to GrapheneOS, this last one is particularly painful.

And sure, everything has gotten a lot faster since then, but there’s a part of me that kind of enjoys the inconvenience of slower, finicky hardware that sometimes needs a nudge in the right direction.

I do think you’re right. Friendster and MySpace were pretty much the peak, then when real social media took over, it all went to shit. Since then, tech exists not to perform some function but to justify its existence specifically to earn money.

I think in terms of cultural exchange of ideas and the enjoyment of being on the internet, 2005-2015 or so was probably the best. The barrier to entry was lowered to where almost anyone could make a meme or post a picture or upload a video or write a blog post or even a microblog post or forum comment of a single sentence and it might go viral through the power of word of mouth.

Then when there was enough value in going viral people started gaming for that as a measure of success, so that it no longer was a reliable metric for quality.

But plenty of things are now better. I think maps and directions are better with a smartphone. Access to music and movies is better than ever. It’s nice to be able to seamlessly video chat with friends and family. There’s real utility there, even if you sometimes have to work around things that aren’t ideal.

This era was before smartphones and always-online lifestyle. Being always online is a prerequisite to the attention economy.

So, yes, you’re right that the best internet was back then. Back when we could leave it at home and go out into the world knowing everybody else had also left it at home.

Laptops are an obvious exception back then, but almost nobody took their laptop to the bar with them, or to a concert, or on a hike, or to the grocery store. And the trouble of pulling it out and trying to find WiFi meant that it wasn’t easy enough to distract the majority.