It was so simple, anyone who wanted to could create a free account [on Geocities, Tripod, FortuneCities, or Freeservers and build a website to share their hobbies and ideas.

The web was more about browsing and exploration.

It is worth remembering a website [...] can also be art. The web is also a creative and cultural space that [can be Free from convention defined by commercial product design and marketing].

If the commercial web is "industrial", you could say that the small web is "artisanal". One is not better than the other. They serve different needs and both can co-exist in an open web.

There is a lot of old good website, internet archive links and examples