I am old enough to remember an Internet populated largely by websites that played a bit of music, shared interesting opinions, and helped us all gain a slightly better understanding of little-known corners of our planet. This was a time before Google, when a significant number of us logged on simply to communicate with relatives and friends abroad, read the news from far-off places, or plan holidays with the help of travel blogs.

There is an argument to be made for how the online world, in which we spend much of our lives today, has made things better, faster, and more convenient for billions of us. I think of that older world with fondness though, because it sometimes feels as if we were a nicer bunch of people then.