Yo, a couple years ago I had become fed up with the state of the modern Internet, and I started looking for alternatives. This is what I have found so far:

• Gopher protocol (sdf.org is pretty active)
• Gemini protocol (Modern version of gopher)
• Shared UNIX systems (also called tildes) sdf.org is great!
• RSS
• IRC/Matrix to chat with people
• Session messenger to chat with family
• BBSes via syncterm
• wiby.me and marginalia.nu search engines to find personal web sites
• oldavista.com to browse the ‘Old Net’
• Web forums
• Neocities
• Webrings (They still exist!)
• Lemmy (This is a new one)

The next step for me will be to build my own personal site. The only way to keep the independent web alive is to participate in it.