this is an interesting thought i wanted to share somehow - why do i really prefer retro-esque socials like SpaceHey, OpenVK, BitView, etc. over modern places?
of course nostalgia seems like an obvious answer, but, considering that i only joined VKontakte in its hayday in 2015, months before redesign happened, and i never used neither MySpace nor YouTube in such early state, it kinda invalidates the easy explanation of "it's just nostalgia". of course general Y2K zeitgeist nostalgia still can be in effect, but not nearly as much.
and what i really think makes me love these places more, despite occasional mild love-hate swings (SpaceHey suffers from occasional petty drama and troll raid plagues for example), it the simplistic utilitarian nature of these places. modern socials are designed to keep your attention, to make you stay, they use complex algorithms to appear smarter than you and decide what you wanna see for you. socials following ideas of early to late 2000s, like SpaceHey, OpenVK, Offline, Pikidiary, BitView, Tubelious, Owler, Blips and so on do not do that - they don't attempt to be smarter than you.
they don't want to hold you hostage and make you endlessly doomscroll. you are in charge, you decide what you want to see, who you want to talk to, and when to shut your damn PC off and touch grass.
this also often comes with a benefit of customizability - SpaceHey follows ideas of MySpace, and on inside technical level, this is the dumbest social network ever made - no algorithms, no personalized feed, no real "theme" feature - just an ability to insert CSS/HTML into "About" fields. it's so not smart that you have to make your own theme or take one from someone, and that's actually a good thing!
early 2000s socials are embodiment of "more with less". more freedom with your social media not being a smartass and deciding for you. and that's why i love em
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