15 years ago felt very different to me as well. Many of us lucked into the conditions that made many online interactions feel worthwhile. The loss of these settings sucks.* But such a creative environment is still attainable and can be found in pockets.
* To be fair, nostalgia around many off these communities can be misleading. Many were never designed to sustain realistic growth nor the inevitable pressures to monetize them. They were naive and ignored human nature, a product of the mentality of their creators or perhaps their participants or both. We know better now. Community building is tricky and worthwhile, rarely a matter of formulaic scaling.
* To be fair, nostalgia around many off these communities can be misleading. Many were never designed to sustain realistic growth nor the inevitable pressures to monetize them. They were naive and ignored human nature, a product of the mentality of their creators or perhaps their participants or both. We know better now. Community building is tricky and worthwhile, rarely a matter of formulaic scaling.