People still made places for themselves, but it took some effort, and every personal site ended up being a reflection of the person who made it and their skills.

I even thought social media was brilliant when it came to say, earlier MySpace.

Why? Easy way to keep in touch with people all at the same time. "Oh look what's going on in so-and-so's life", instead of hoping they'll stumble on your blog lol.

Even early Facebook was kinda like this. Network of friends and family. Chronological order. Simple, but not exploitative enough.

Then, yeah, I think it all went dumpster-fire when the incentive was "How many complete strangers can I get to follow my hot takes?" and adding rage-based prioritizing instead of chronological, and whatever the hell the "For you" section is. (When I rarely pop on FB with TOR, it's all just NSFW thot content...that I cannot disable.)

When it all became about following celebrities and being all "notice me senpai!" on their feeds.

...Putting bad companies on blast can stay though. A platform to publicly shame bastards like airlines and politicians is/was a feature. Lol