The early web was largely academic, not corporate. I was there when it switched over. You’re describing a time period after the dot com crash as the early internet, but it was around before that and was quite nice actually. I was a kid back then, we learned in junior high school how to upload our hand-edited websites via ftp over dial up internet, and the companies that intermediated the internet to us were ISPs not advertising companies. I suppose AOL was an exception but nobody I know used it and would have been made fun of for doing so.
I think you've misread the comment. They never called the "more corporate" era of 10-15 years ago the "early web", they were describing it as distinct from the even earlier "early web", which seems to be the same early web you're fond of.
I think the two of you agree about those time periods, they were just pointing out that they believe the peak sad, stale, corporate internet period was not now, but actually a decade or so ago.
FWIW I agree with them. I think people who romanticize the early days of the internet are quick to dismiss what we have currently just because it isn't exactly the same as what they remember. There's plenty of online spaces that have the same vibes on today's internet, and they have the same or even more users as they did back then (because there were a lot less overall users back in those days - like multiple orders of magnitude less - a small slice of the pie today is bigger than the whole thing ~30 years ago), they're just in different places and in different shapes.
