That’s some rose tinted glasses, and misunderstands why we don’t do that anymore, despite being perfectly able to.
Those obscure websites you were referring to had a high barrier to entry, they required the person to know how to host and code some basic HTML. Sure, it had more personality, but that barrier meant there was far less people who could do that. So then platforms like geocities came out, where instead you now needed just an account and to fill out some forms to create your own little site, you didn’t even have to host anymore! That was the beginning of web2. Those people who now were creating pages on geocities didn’t have a voice before, they could have posted their own websites but simply did not have the means to, nor should they be required to just so they can post online.
Well, now we’re on geocities on crack, which the websites we post our content on have gotten much more advance, to the point that we are now. Those big internet monoliths exist because of web2, because people didn’t want to handle their own self hosting stack just to post some stuff to the internet, so no wonder we’ve reached this point. People then gravitated to the best places to post their content, and to explore other’s content. Because that’s essentially what the internet is, exploring other’s content.