It's easy to think that things were simply better when we were younger. Most people feel this way about something or other, so it's not suprising to see some of the veterans of internet communities saying that the internet was better in the past. But it's hard to see how that wasn't the case.
In terms of ownership, the Internet used to be like a sprawling city with many small businesses (websites) owned and operated by individuals, and some by larger companies, and a few by larger multi-national corporations. As time went on, many of these websites disapeared or fell into disrepair. The larger players consolidated and specialized, and as "web 2.0" rolled around the focus of the internet was no longer on individuals cataloging their own information and experiences, but about "user generated content". If you look closely, you can notice a distinct shift. The users no longer host the content themselves, but they genterate content for a larger site to organize and host.
The argument is pretty simple. Putting lots of content in an easy to reach place means that more people can see it and share it more easily. Not everyone can host their own videos, especially if they're getting any appriciable amount of views, so Youtube can save the day with a centralized service that everyone can use to host and view content.
The insidious nature of a system like this doesn't show it's face until this paradigm reaches an ologarchical stage where there are only a few big players left. After years and decades of consolidating users into larger platforms with more rigid use cases and features, the sprawling city of the Internet looks more like Shenzhen, China; a few warehouses the size of entire neighborhoods, all with an entire ecosystem under one roof. Alone, this state of afairs wouldn't be so bad, but incentives run the world, and one of the most temping incentives when you have large groups of people in one place is advertisement.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then this small aritcal is already pretty dull. In the future I'll have to outline this more fully, but the gist of this is that large websites end up treating users like recources that they can extract data from, which is like a new currency in this new paradigm, which they sell to advertisers, who advertise on that very website. The users of a platform like twitter, facebook and youtube are simultaneously a product being sold and they buyers of another product, advertising, which they consume almost without being aware of it. Throw payment processors into the mix of this, who have their own secret blend of trade secrets for deciding who can do business through them and who cant, and you have the workings of a system that absolutely has the power to crush an individuals freedom of speech without technically violating any laws.
More needs to be said on this, but what is to be done in the meantime? Facebook isn't going anywhere, and if eyes on your website are the only thing that's needed to keep it operational, then naturally the rich are going to get richer and platforms will continue to consoidate.
The solution, as far as I can tell, is desistance and decenteralization. I said earlier that a person can't host their own youtube, but that might not even be the case anymore. Most people in the West walk around with modern supercomputers in their pockets with constant, 24/7 access to the internet, so unless you're serving tens of thousands of people a day, why not? Even if you are serving the population of a mostest Missouri city daily, a small home server is more than up for that task. Technologies fit for this task have existed for years, and knowing how to use thems means unteathering yourself from a system that only seeks to take advantage of you.
Probably the harder part of what I view as the solution to this is a step away from convinience. What made platforms like youtube and twitter great were how easy it was to find good content, and get your own content in front of peoples' eyes. We're well into "too much of a good thing" at this point. Stepping away from making things easy is good for the soul, like lifting weights is good for your body. Hosting your own services, Building your own web presesnce off of any centeralize platform (that includes Neocities), donwloading and organizing your own music library rather than using streaming services. Widen your scope of the internet. Start an IRC channel instead of a Discord. Find a forum for a hobby that you enjoy that's not on reddit, make an account, make a few posts and keep the place alive for a little bit longer. Keep the spirit of "surfing the web" alive so that new sites, hobbies and communities can be found by you and others spread those tools around. Don't keep the machine alive that's sucking you dry.