> A lot of the nostalgia in this thread isn't so much for the technologies of years past. It's for an internet that was just for us nerds, without the regular people participating.

Pretty much. It’s painful to watch the mass commodification of a technology you love, but that’s how the world advances.

A lot of what used to happen was a form of altruism. You had to be willing to give up time, money, and hardware to dedicate running many of these tings. That works if you are getting along with everyone. But once you get a 'troll', or some demanding person, or need money because lost job, etc that altruism wears extremely thin. So outsourcing it to some other company to pay, for and keep the software up to date is extremely alluring. There are still people willing to do it. But they will come and go but mostly 'go'. But if you think about it, it makes sense. Someone new coming in is not going to pick up 20+ year old BBS software unless they really want that. They are going to rock onto existing platform and start there. Then in 10 years their members will realize 'if you dont own it you are renting it, if you are renting it you are at the whim of the owner'.

A mix of both. When I see a Medium post by a programmer I feel sad.