oh god, yeah. it only just hit me that it was just over 3 years when i first started playing survival. the first time i earned any money ever was when i won a skin competition. i traveled for thousands of blocks on foot or boat to find the perfect place to build. i was alone for a while, but never bored. i made friends by pure accident and i still miss them. i remember all the ads in the chat for everyone's shops that usually had the top tier items (nametags, saddles, nether stars, beacons) and it was an accomplishment if you had more than one. i got a rank and /fly on here because of how incredibly amazing the friends i made on here were.
i think the journey that it took to get to where we were, no matter how simple the farm or house or shop, was what made survival special, especially with all your friends. even the special perks you paid for irl didn't always make everything super easy.
it helped me when i had no friends at a new school besides one group i didn't know well. i went through three resets in survival red before i stopped playing consistently. i stopped playing altogether on beanblockz soon after that. occasionally i'll check the website to see how beanblockz is doing (which is how i'm here rn).
grinding and spawners really changed how survival was played. i'll miss old survival, but i'm glad there's still people around to enjoy the new cycles it has.