Reddit is the perfect case example of what happened to the 07-08 web as time went on. Initially, the Internet was a big exciting place and people just built stuff to see if they could, and maybe they could sell it later (a lot of communities never even considered huge commercial success, it was just about mucking around in a space that was cheap and exciting.)
As time went on, everything rotted. The chill sites struggled to keep the lights on, and many eventually shuttered. The "we'll sell it off some day" ones sold it off, and the buyers ALWAYS ran the site into the ground.
So now we get an Internet that resembles a b-movie graveyard. There are a lot of corpses, and a lot of shambling zombies. The few souls still alive are holed up somewhere with a shotgun, awaiting the end.
As time went on, everything rotted. The chill sites struggled to keep the lights on, and many eventually shuttered. The "we'll sell it off some day" ones sold it off, and the buyers ALWAYS ran the site into the ground.
So now we get an Internet that resembles a b-movie graveyard. There are a lot of corpses, and a lot of shambling zombies. The few souls still alive are holed up somewhere with a shotgun, awaiting the end.