“aren’t as many of them”
I do not believe that. There is more of everything now than there was Internet before. The web used to be tiny.
You are not going to find what you want by clicking on the “Mozilla Cool Site of the Day”. But they are out there.
Not that I do not agree with the point the OP is making. The “cool site” story itself illustrates the overall story-arc of the Internet pretty well:
I “switched to Linux” from Windows 2000 but I have also had machines running with Windows and macOS during that time. My last work computer was Windows 11 ( but I hardly used it ).
Hard to really put into words what kept me in Linux. At times, it has required work and knowledge Windows would not have demanded of me. At the same time, Linux has been largely free of “nonsense”. It just always felt like home.
[ Edit: thinking about I more. I have used Linux since 1992 and honestly moved from primarily OS/2 to mostly Linux. I really liked Windows 2000 though and used it well into the XP era. ]