I, too, felt the old web was much more creative and limitless. But to be blunt, these attempts to resurrect it feel like the opposite: another collection of 90s-style HTML and artwork about generic "old web" stuff (or about the old web itself, which makes no sense - you don't hear people today reminiscing about 2025).

I think a big problem is desensitization. When I was young, MSPaint art looked good, bitcrushed music sounded fine, and simple flash games were fun. Then the art, music, and games kept becoming more complex and higher quality, so the novelty and perceived opportunity was sustained. Now it has tapered off, so the novelty has run out and the next improvement is hard to imagine.

However, the world is so complicated and technology is still improving such that I suspect (and hope) we'll find more breakthroughs within the next decade. Personally, I'm still optimistic about VR: right now good VR is too expensive and development is too hard, but those are incrementally-solvable problems, and few people have experienced good VR (especially with motion) but I can imagine it.