The reason you could host them for free is because geocities, anglefire, etc monetized it. Banner ads existed in those days too. It was just the early days of i

The reason you could host them for free is because geocities, anglefire, etc monetized it. Banner ads existed in those days too. It was just the early days of internet advertising so ads where less targeted. It's been said ad nauseam but the sort of things that people would put on a geocities page (pictures, political diatribes, even things like fan pages) has moved to social media. But even that is not a problem in and of itself. The early days of social media were fun as well. The thing that killed the internet IMO is smartphones. The internet was better when it was a "place" (cyberspace!) that you consciously had to take time to visit. You sat down, you "got on the internet" and then you "left" when you got up. The ubiquitous internet that you carry around at all times, being constantly connected is what created the pervasive advertising that you're talking about because the internet captured more of people's attention which made advertising much, much more lucrative. Not to mention the fact that it's a content creation device as well. You couldn't take a picture and instantly post it to your geocities page or bang out 288 character brain farts on a whim. Everything was much more deliberate.