Considering that there exist entire essays on "About Me" pages it shouldn't be that hard to find someone you like, and could be argued to be easier to find interesting people on the web-revival than social media. It's just that contacting them is a challenge.
The only person on the non-social-media side online that I could say is a friend is the creator of the Melonland forum. Melonking, because he is the only person I actively try and talk to privately on the web-revival. I also have a lot of trust in him and is nice to me.
When it comes to making friends here, I would mainly suggest trying to find any contact information on a person and simply try to start a conversation from there. While it maybe harder to make friends here vs social media, it's usually best to try and reach out to others that may seem worth your time.
But that's only if you can find a way to keep track of them as they could be anywhere.
There are many standards of contacting that you simply have to keep up with, in the case of Melonking (this isn't to blame him as I understand his reasoning) I use to rely on his Discord as that's simply what I was use to until he told me that he was moving away from Discord and told me to use alternate communications instead (email, Melonland Forum DMs, etc). While I am lucky that Melonking is a easy person to find on the web-revival but when it comes to lesser known figures keeping track can be hard, especially when they decide to move! So many different preferences from different users that it can make you not want to talk to them sometimes!
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Websites are like whispers in the night 
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