It wasn’t commodified nearly to the extent it is now, so a large portion of it existed merely because of people’s passion. There were no super sites of information like reddit, so people would create their own websites and forums dedicated to one subject. Forums still had their arguments, but it wasn’t nearly as vitriolic as social media is now. Search really, really sucked until Google came along. Slow as balls.
the good news is, often times those old forums are still up. so if you’re doing a very niche hobby, like trying to outfit your '05 nissan sentra with a turbocharger for some reason, there are forums talking about it. you might even be able to respond to the threads. who knows.
We also didn’t rely on the internet as much as a resource. Like of course you would do some of your research online, but if you were really working on something serious, you went to the library!
It wasn’t commodified nearly to the extent it is now, so a large portion of it existed merely because of people’s passion. There were no super sites of information like reddit, so people would create their own websites and forums dedicated to one subject. Forums still had their arguments, but it wasn’t nearly as vitriolic as social media is now. Search really, really sucked until Google came along. Slow as balls.
the good news is, often times those old forums are still up. so if you’re doing a very niche hobby, like trying to outfit your '05 nissan sentra with a turbocharger for some reason, there are forums talking about it. you might even be able to respond to the threads. who knows.
We also didn’t rely on the internet as much as a resource. Like of course you would do some of your research online, but if you were really working on something serious, you went to the library!