For better or worse, content moderation was almost nonexistent. Of those 100s of forums and websites you could see just about anything. The degenerate and shock culture thrived as much as all the other random stuff. People can still find terrible things out there today but now there’s real effort to police and control the platforms. The big players don’t let the REAL terrible stuff on their systems. Rotten.com is always what I reference there. There used to be porn, TV shows, and movie, on YouTube. Copy right was a suggestion and free use was everywhere for homemade music videos and downloads. There was also less effort to protect children. There are still issues today but widely the internet is at least devided into more age appropriate spaces. Those spaces get invaded but it’s not nearly how it was. In the 90s or early 00s you were either assumed to be an adult or just as a kid tossed in with the general population. There was generally no avoidance if you were a minor like today.

That’s not to say the protections that exist today are perfect. It is more so that they exist at all and at least for appearances effort is made.

It kind of had a flea market / bazaar vibe. It really was that old west feel.