I've definitely arrived at a place in my online life where I do not need to be on some company's corporate advertising mill website.

I left, and I know I'm just one middle aged dude pining for the internet before the companies turned their roving eyes to it, but I have no interest in going back, regardless of what they do at this point. I offer this because maybe more people will start to think "do I really need to be a part of a community of millions, or even hundreds of millions? or maybe is it more healthy for me to find the right community online that is a bit more like a mid-sized city? We can share news across these little islands, so we don't all need to fit in a single corporate container."