Yesterday I stumbled upon dfos.com and I’m super excited. It really feels like the early internet, full of strange homepages, niche forums, HTML art, “under construction” GIFs. The idea of private communities is nothing new, but I like the implementation. The UX is weird, but in a pleasant way.
Yes, I have all the usual questions: who pays for this, and what happens when they run out of money or interest? Who has access to the data? What are their policies, can I be banned because I have the wrong passport or speak the wrong language (because I do)? And so on.
These are fair questions, but very sad ones, because they made me realize how far we’ve drifted from the free internet of the 90s, how far I’ve drifted from that naive 90s girl.
But nevertheless, I love the idea, and I’m really tempted to build something there, some community around the real-life experiences I miss so much.
And here comes another question: is it even possible to build a community on a marginal platform in 2026, when everyone is sick and tired, nobody trusts anybody, and nobody has the attention span for yet another internet place. But still, maybe I’ll try.