Some critical differences, I think, are:

- What we did on the Internet in the early 90s was not broadcast to our (real world) peers. If some big drama blew up online, we could escape it with the flip of a switch.

- Similarly, we could escape real world drama by shifting to our online relationships.

- Normal people were not online yet, so you didn't have all the normal real world structures of authority and popularity/hostility. Or, you had substitutes instead, because this is human nature, but they were not so universal and entrenched. It was an Internet of niches, and we could all find or create our own.

- There was no pervasive profitability goal in keeping our eyeballs on a particular platform, so today's dark pattern manipulation just didn't exist.

- It was separate. Not only did the Internet not bleed into real life (and v-v), but it wasn't always-available like today with smartphone ubiquity.

The Internet, back then, was a safe third space.

Today it's often a toxic hellscape, with some exceptional corners.