Yeah, I sometimes miss the way we socialized in the 80s and 90s. I was an early adopter of the Internet myself, and it was really awesome for a while. But what it has turned into now ... I can't shake the feeling that it is definitely a net negative, we would be better off forgetting it ever existed.
> But what it has turned into now
For me it's been the same as always, I'm able to connected with others that have the same niche interests as me, wherever they are in the world, and I'm eternally grateful for it existing.
Everything new always end up being "less useful" or "actively harmful" to some people once it's exposed to the real world, but that doesn't mean there is a large part of us that benefit from it many ways it regardless. I grew up in a rural place where no one cared about the same things as me, and once we got the internet for the first time, it was like a whole new world opened up. I still feel like this today.
But even so, others get pulled into it, or spit out of it, and they get harmed. And it sucks, ideally nothing should harm others. But it seems unavoidable that it does, even the bestest of tools with the bestest intentions will be misused by people, to harm themselves or to harm others. Maybe human nature just sucks.