openai․com was once the personal homepage of a guy named glenn (2001), and tiktok․com was the quaint shared homepage of a couple who went from dating to married with a baby (~1998-2001). THREAD!!!

slack․com was David's Wacky Web Page. I really like the cooking projects and cat memorial (2005) https://web.archive.org/web/20090525181052/http://www.slack.com/…

in 1999, hulu․com was a family photo repository of a couple named Hung and Lucy (Hu + Lu) https://web.archive.org/web/19991023065011/http://hulu.com/…

in 2001, "doordash․com" was extremely NSFW porn site whereas "onlyfans․com" was an inoffensive hub for music fans https://web.archive.org/web/20010202021400/http://doordash.com/… https://web.archive.org/web/20020628124538/http://www.onlyfans.com/…

midjourney․com once belonged to a woman named Shannon who blogged about what she called the "midjourney of life" (2010) https://web.archive.org/web/20100517072244/http://midjourney.com/…

before Elon bought spacex․com it belonged to a guy who provided "marketing solutions for Christian media ministries" (2001) https://web.archive.org/web/20010414030708/http://www.spacex.com/…

hinge․com (1999) had info about hinges! threads․com (2000s) sold threads! things used to make sense https://web.archive.org/web/19990208013701/http://www.hinge.com/… https://web.archive.org/web/20070708033903/http://www.threads.com/…

in 1997, x․com belonged to two guys named Dave and Rob, and the slogan of the site was "not nearly the worst place on the web!!!" https://web.archive.org/web/19970411224438/http://x.com/…

before big tech made the internet a corporate hellscape, it was quaint and free and full of ordinary people (with souls and everything!) and the slop was wacky and homemade just like mom (and David) used to make. there's so much to mourn! makes me sad and angry!

anyway the good old days are gone but can you believe how lucky we are to have @Internet Archive to at least remember them