The Internet is a mega entertainment complex built on top of a graveyard of meaning. Only Silicon Valley-approved content, opinions, and mechanisms may be used to do anything on the Internet. I talk a bit about how the Internet has been slowly choked out and how it is now dead.
I am not particularly old. BBS, Usenet, MUDs and other such 1990s constructs were not part of my childhood, but I still got to explore some of the wild Internet of the early 2000s. Practically speaking, it was like entering international waters. Seemingly no rules applied, and no law held dominion. This was the case for many years, far before the start of the 21st century, although of course the Internet did not get substantially bigger until this century.