There was a guy who started a personal website back in like 96 or 97. He basically posted his scans and screencaps of celebrity nudity. He also opened a celebrity nudity message board that he built from scratch. The board thrived. It became a hub for all the superstars in the “celebrity imaging” internet community. All the guys from all the best IRC channels would premier their work on this site. Eventually he expanded into a celebrity nudity database. He wrote scripts that would scrape Usenet, IRC and a slew of other resources for new pictures of famous women in various states of undress. Each image was meticulously cataloged, indexed and tagged. The entire thing was an amazing bit of engineering. He was a literal pioneer in the wild west that was late 90’s internet. Mr Skin LITERALLY got his start on this man’s board. The database was huge, and it ran smooth as butter. He eventually changed to a subscription model where you pay by the gig. I don’t know how much he charged, because he grandfathered all the regulars and old schoolers in for life.

He could have gone the Mr. Skin route and partnered up with sponsors, put banner ads on every single page, he could have asked me to actually pay for my membership… And he would have made a shit load of money in the process. But he didn’t.

For almost 25 years he ran the site, personally cataloging every new image that was added every day. He closed it down this past November. And it really hit me just how rare a place like that is these days.

That’s what I miss about the old internet, when people did things for fun, to share information, to connect… and they had integrity.

I can’t wait to be one of the “I was part of the great Reddit migration” dudes when this lemmy stuff inevitably goes tits up in 15 years.