Comment by cdrnsf
4 hours ago
There's an element of nostalgia, certainly but it's also a reaction to the overwhelmingly commercial web. Why not build something instead of scrolling through brief videos interspersed with more and more ads that follow you everywhere?
Large companies have helped build the web but they've done at least as much, if not more, to help kill it.
The small web can be a lot of things, but IMO it gets too overrun by the ideologically zealous. One does not have to believe in primitive anarchism to enjoy camping, for example. In general it seems any niche idea on the internet is like candle flame to zealous moths.