It was 96/97. I remember thinking "The drones are moving in on this."

Canter and Siegel had nuked Usenet in 1994, and banners were invented in 1994 by Hotwired. But it took a while for the tech to eat the web, because the web was a niche interest for the first few years.

During that time you could - and a lot of people did - put together a simple site with a text editor and free hosting supplied by your ISP.

The majority of internet users wouldn't have experienced that supposed world.

The median age in the US in 39, which means at least half of all Americans would have been in elementary school or not around during that supposed era of the internet, and the mass adoption of the internet only really began in earnest in the early 2000s.