I remember seeing them back in the day, and as a Swede I didn't really get it. I didn't really know what AT&T was, so it just seemed like a very odd link and ou

I remember seeing them back in the day, and as a Swede I didn't really get it. I didn't really know what AT&T was, so it just seemed like a very odd link and out of touch with whatever page I just came from. I also remember there were specific apps you could install on your machine that would show you ads, and supposedly you were paid money for having this installed and even more if you actually clicked the ads. Roboclickers became a thing. I never used these, so I don't know if you actually could earn money this way, but I remember seeing them installed on various public computers like in school and the library. I miss the 90s internet. So many things sucked so bad, but so many things were really good. I made lasting friendships with people over IRC. Sending files via FTP seemed like magic, and you could telnet into all sorts of interesting places. Geocities and web rings, I loved this so much – everybody had a site of their own! There was so much potential and it felt like every day you discovered something new, just by browsing around. I remember when blogs became a new thing, in the 00s at some point I think, and everyone and their mom started blogging. I didn't like this very much. So much content was terrible, and mostly meta-content about how to set up your blogs. No one talked best practices when it came to Geocities – it was just good fun – but with blogs it all of a sudden turned so professional for lack of a better term, and boring. At some point as well, you had to start registering accounts everywhere – it was super annoying. The internet is growing up, and it's probably better off for it, but I do miss the naïveté and optimism of the 90s sometimes.