Molly White is at it again with a piece that starts out depressing but ends up empowering and optimistic: https://www.citationneeded.news/we-can-have-a-different-web/

"As Tom Eastman once put it, the web has rotted into "five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four"

The thing is: none of this is gone. Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it's become a lot easier. We can return. Better, yet: we can restore the things we loved about the old web while incorporating the wonderful things that have emerged since, developing even better things as we go forward, and leaving behind some things from the early web days we all too often forget when we put on our rose-colored glasses.

When I envision the web, I picture an infinite expanse of empty space that stretches as far as the eye can see. It's full of fertile soil, but no seeds have taken root. That is, except for about an acre of it."