I remember the late 90s a little differently. At least in the USA, it was a time where most people used centralized networks like America Online and Compuserve,

I remember the late 90s a little differently. At least in the USA, it was a time where most people used centralized networks like America Online and Compuserve, and instead of websites, brands would direct you to their AOL keyword. Everyone was concerned about the centralization of power, but there was a lot of hope about the possibility of decentralized information. AOL lost its power in the begenning of the millenium, but it was quickly followed in popularity of other centralized networks like MySpace. Meanwhile, the decentralized networks only continued to grow along with them. Maybe the mistake was thinking that the Internet would either be centralized or decentralized, that one model would win in the end. The large organizations never gave up, but the small networks didn't either. There's no meaningful end to depth of the current Internet, and the decentralized part is larger than ever. Even Gopher space has continued to slowly grow. Maybe the only thing we lack is curiosity, and that's easy to rediscover.