it isn't that the early internet was unequivocally better.
there is a lot of romanticising of the early internet. for once, it's easy to forget about the bad stuff. there is nostalgic charm now to rows and rows of clunky animated gifs, but that shit took forever to load at 64 kbps. auto-playing music on sites was annoying then, and it still is now. tiny 88x31 pixel banners are cute -- they became popular because they were small and fast to load, but now they are impractical and really, really hard to read on 24" monitors, and it isn't actually better on mobile devices, either.
the internet being bigger than it was isn't inherently bad. it being more accessible to laypeople isn't inherently bad.
but the principles that made the early internet creative and fun have been washed away by optimising for capitalism.
i have more thoughts but it'll probably end up being another long essay on my main site... planning to do something else with this space, but we'll see when/if it happens. :V