It wasn't much about the edge for me. It was about the fact that it wasn't some glistening strip-mall full of corporate products . The internet was once a lively neighborhood. Full of trouble and shady folk, but a lot of culture and soul. That is, before everything got gentrified and the YouTube-Google-Facebook-Twitter mall took its place. Everything is so mass produced now. YTMND's old deli is gone. Now there's only TikTok's chain restaurant. The Newgrounds roadshow and the trailers it came on are nowhere to be seen, forever replaced by Regal Youtube cinemas. Yeah, maybe it's the natural course of things, but the imminent domain of boring, cookie cutter content and lack of genuine fun is hard to take without getting depressed.

Considering how much art throughout the years has dealt with this exact same issue (the old, lawless world slowly being replaced by a safer, yet more boring one), i'm starting to think it's something every generation goes through.
When you're young, you rebel, you're an immature, arrogant little shit, even if only when your parents/teachers aren't looking, but eventually that either gets beaten out of you by life, or you just naturally lose your edge. It's not really a terrible thing to become a well-rounded adult, but i think all well-rounded adults miss being edgy teens.
In that sense, this new, safer internet may not be the worst thing ever, and it may very well have been the only way the internet found to survive, but damn it if i don't miss the good ol' days.