That's basically true though I don't know how much of it is left. If you were alive in the 80's and 90's to see what the internet used to be then it just goes without saying what it has become. If you weren't alive and using the internet when public use was in its infancy then I will tell you that most of the internet was individual's actual web pages. Those who were essentially computer-illiterate may have subscribed to AOL which was a propriety environment but allowed access to certain aspects of the internet in a limited way (main Usenet), so that doesn't really count in my mind. There were no corporate sites and no banner ads. That began in the 90's when the hurdles to actually configuring a computer to access the internet and the available of public ISPs were lowered and more common folk could begin to explore it.

Commercialization of the internet was phase one of destroying what it was but the centralization of it with the Facebook/Twitter duo and the Google/Amazon empires have really polished it off. Most community-based sites that allowed basic hosting disappeared making it easier for the common person to just make a Facebook page. Nobody is using unique client/server protocols anymore and everyone uses HTTP. As far as I can tell Gopher, FTP, IRC are dead. People don't use separate services and clients for their email, instant messaging, etc and they are allowing their entire online experience to run through Facebook and Google. It's completely sick and disgusting but if it weren't for the ease by which the common person can connect to and access these services they might not be on the internet at all. They keep allowing the internet to be centralized to these few powers by continuing to use the services. It really pisses me off to see people giving up all their power and allowing the internet to be turned into another cable TV type service. Except of course it's far worse than cable TV ever was because within a controlled environment like Facebook or pretty much anywhere now, they have the illusion they are experiencing other people's opinions and interacting when there is so much heavy manipulation going on to influence them, and every single thing is being actively surveilled and archived to be used against us all at any time in the future.

Now we have an entire generation coming into adulthood who literally grew up on Facebook and they won't be able to imagine any other way or see how wrong it is what the internet has been reduced to.