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.

Metafilter is very old school in a good way! http://metafilter.com/

we gotta start making them again.

Not a specific site, but you can get the old internet feel using Tor Browser and exploring Tor websites. Last time I checked it out it felt like going back to the early 2000s or late 90s depending on the website. There are also some sites hosted on IPFS that looks like something from Geocities.

Have a look at Neocities (a successor to Geocities). My website is here.

You can also have a look at the rest of the Fediverse. There are some cool accounts on Mastodon and PeerTube.

For that true "old web" thing, have you ever heard of gemini? Take a look. My capsule on gemini is here, but you will need a gemini browser in order to see it.

Hope this helps!