It's not nostalgia. It's hope.

Full disclosure: I did not have a very good time on "Old Web". Granted, I wasn't there during "true golden time" (90s-early 2000s), of the "catalogues and travel blogs", but starting from around 2008 and onwards. I stumbled across a lot of things I shouldn't have stumbled across. Engaged with early hate content (yes, it was there, the algorithms just weren't able to push it down everyone's throat — but algorithms are not creating new aspects of our psyche, they are just propelling what is already inside us, the deep fears, the anger, the insecurities). Saw the Wild-West side of things. Saw people being cruel and breaching others' privacy for fun. Unfortunately, I didn't even learn HTML in the process. Doesn't sound like a very good time, right? 

It's not nostalgia for me, it's hope. There is a difference between being good out of confusion and being good because of the conscious choice. 

Once upon a time, people engaged with the "Pure Old Web" in the way they did because they did not know any better or worse — they were just following the rhythm of development and technological advancements. They were writing travel blogs, because what else could they write? They were learning HTML, because how else could they post? They were writing "cringy blogs" because nobody was able to tell them they were cringe — at least before they were spotted by the anonymous boards. 

They were not writing travel blogs because they wanted people to see travel blogs instead of violence. They were not writing cringy blogs because they made a conscious choice to not buy into the idea of cringe. 

The New Old Web is doing just that: making a conscious choice, and that, I believe, is very different, because are we aware we could choose something easier, faster, bigger, more violent, more cruel, that allows for our quick judgement? Yes. But we limit ourselves, because we have learned our lesson. 

It's not that Old Web was undisputably great in every way. It's the fact that we can go back to the very roots and, this time, use it responsibly that's great.