Well, that's not the pre-2005 internet I remember. What I remember are popups, pop-unders, poisoned search results due to crude SEO tactics like including small background-colored text on websites, endless rings of web pages referring to each other, heavily blinking banners, and even the best ad blocker being so slow on the machine that it's no joke. And this is the commercial abuse only, there was a lot of other types going around.
I do despise many aspects of the current internet, but I think that it's the fallibility of man that poisons the nice things, and I don't think that it was ever too much different in this regard.
For a different internet, there are ways to go about it. I'm not sure how much of it you already know.
Millionshort provides alternative search results to queries. I think this is similar to what you're looking for, and it's free.
Alternative networks spring up from time to time, like the Gemini network. I'm not sure how much of a content desert they are, as I'm not a frequent user.
Generally if you hang around in free software / open source spaces, they have a lot of people with an alternative take on the modern things, including people taking part of an internet that's not mainstream, for example by excluding running any JavaScript. This can lead to other places, forums, and so on.
I wish you luck. But be prepared that the past is gone. Maybe never existed in the first place.
I do despise many aspects of the current internet, but I think that it's the fallibility of man that poisons the nice things, and I don't think that it was ever too much different in this regard.
For a different internet, there are ways to go about it. I'm not sure how much of it you already know.
Millionshort provides alternative search results to queries. I think this is similar to what you're looking for, and it's free.
Alternative networks spring up from time to time, like the Gemini network. I'm not sure how much of a content desert they are, as I'm not a frequent user.
Generally if you hang around in free software / open source spaces, they have a lot of people with an alternative take on the modern things, including people taking part of an internet that's not mainstream, for example by excluding running any JavaScript. This can lead to other places, forums, and so on.
I wish you luck. But be prepared that the past is gone. Maybe never existed in the first place.