Just as we were once young, so was "the (internet) world"/the websites.

It's maybe kind of like missing flying before 9/11 changed security procedures permanently across the globe. There's nothing invalid at all about saying that was an overall better quality of experience and I'm sad that there seems to be no means to bring it back.

I read some article about back when train travel was new and borders weren't secured and passports weren't a thing. IIRC, "wander lust" was a bonafide mental health diagnosis applied to people who would just up and leave and go elsewhere for a time, abandoning their lives and families and claiming to forget they existed.

That mental health diagnosis ceased to exist once that more of travel ceased to exist. Trains still exist, but you can't just up and go somewhere on a whim without a passport in the same way.

The world actually does, in fact, change in important ways. It's not really fair to dismiss that entirely on the idea that you just miss being young.

Though I certainly do miss being young in some ways. I miss being young and naive and just talking with people without wondering what their agenda is and whether or not it will be a serious problem for me because I've seen too much of that. In some sense, worrying about that doesn't seem to do a great job of protecting me from a certain type of person, but it does kill a lot of spontaneity and my online relationships just aren't the same.

And I wonder at what I've gained and at what I've lost and if it's worth it. But like with post 9/11 plane flight, there's no going back and I'm stuck with it, for better or worse, like it or not.