Only because Google actually worked as advertised (and only as advertised). Compared to what Google is now, that’s a matter of opinion.

All things considered, I’ll take the Google of yesteryear over the Google of today. I’ll also take a more privative and much goofier/glitchier YouTube.

Shit, I remember when having a Gmail account was a coveted thing that required an invite that people paid literally hundreds, even thousands of dollars for. I had five, and I sold one for $2k, and another for $4k. (These people were total twats). Decades later, I still use my fistname.lastname@gmail.com addy, while one is dead, and the other got married 2 months later and changed their name anyway. Idiots, lol. Weeks later, invite Scott bumped up to 50, then 250, then unlimited, then it got opened to the public.

Being impatient is expensive.

Grad school was a crazy time