In the meantime, read the long post below
The golden age of the Internet was from 2002-2010.
Here's why:
Social networking was much, MUCH cooler back then. Talking to friends (or creepy strangers) on ICQ or AIM or Yahoo Messenger was much less awkward and personal than texting on your shitty Nokia or flip phone. On AIM, you could add an away message or even CSS. You could also add CSS on your Myspace account, or your Xanga. ESPECIALLY your Xanga. You would get mad eprops from that. It sounds vapid, but the Internet was much less vapid than, say, Instagram.
Even the memes were better back then. Rather than being something millions latched onto a day after it was created, memes were a bit more underground. Chuck Norris, bananaphone, GI Joe, Maddox, and bash.org quotes were very funny to us back then because we were all nerds. Edginess still existed though, they talked in 1337sp33k and shared goatse. Even if you weren't a nerd, you became one when you entered the Internet.
Because everything back then was new and it had soul. People spent time creating videos and games in Flash, not for money, but just to entertain themselves. I remember visiting Newgrounds or Ebaumsworld or even Homestar Runner, and being amazed of its shitty creativity in all its glory. We might look back at the days of Flash (especially its predecessor Shockwave, or god forbid Java) with contempt, but it allowed for so much creativity that today's teenagers will never see.
I miss the days of warez. When torrenting was something that took time and felt exciting rather than something that you could do in the span of a few seconds. When downloading songs onto your mp3 player was a thing. When the DMCA wasn't a thing.
Mostly, however, I miss the sense of community the old Internet gave us. Forums, chatrooms, and fansites for different things were common but never overcrowded. I miss truly being anonymous on the Internet. I miss visiting random people's fansites or Angelfire pages and seeing their guestbooks and Web rings. I miss when making something of your own online took effort and experience in HTML rather than filling out a simple Facebook form. Sure, the websites were shitty, and so was literally everything else on the Internet back then. But they had character and creativity. And I think the Internet in general had more character before everything was filtered into the same five or so big social networking websites.
There will be stuff here soon.