When Burner-Lee first made the internet, he wanted it to be available for all, so that it may be a place where people would share their ideas and creations. A cultural exchange if you will
Services such as Geocities helped keep that view alive!: it allowed people to be able to create a website, and customize it to their desires!
Soon however, some websites got really big, and people gravited to them. This is what I'm dubbing the core web. It's what youtube, facebook, instagram, and other popular websites are. They aren't that great anymore, as they have several issues with them, such as
A recent issue that I've also begun to notice is that they are all copying each other. We saw this with tiktok, and it's success with shorts. Other big name corporations saw this, and copied them to become a norm
Before many of the popular sites we have now, there were many others that allowed more creative freedom. Geocities being one I've already mentioned, but MySpace was a great example. Even youtube allowed people to customize everything at one point!
The section above is an archived page of the smosh page from youtube. Unfortunately, not all webpages are this lucky, as when Geocities shut down, a good portion of the entire thing became lost media. Luckily, we can save and archive webpages with the Internet Archive!