I agree with you in that there are still any number of small communities pretty comparable to what was on the "old" internet, including as you say, on the serve

I agree with you in that there are still any number of small communities pretty comparable to what was on the "old" internet, including as you say, on the servers still running on the old applications. The main difference would be on accessibility, where the "old" internet were mainstream services that people just flocked to almost by default, while now you have to do your homework to join communities that will match the same criteria. It is not old at all, but to me Reddit is a good representation of that: at some point it was small enough you'd just go there and find something interesting. From there the communities stayed, but you had to heavily filter what you wanted to see. And now you'll be using specific clients, disable the crap in your settings, force the old interface, or any of the trick du jour to keep having a sane experience.