I think this is just rose tinted glasses. The internet was a lot smaller place in the past and by every measure there is orders of magnitude more content available today than in the 90s across the full spectrum of human affairs. Although highly visible to the individual content creators, the slivers of content that get removed from YouTube are drops in the ocean compared to the massive amount of content made available on just YouTube alone. Most people on the internet today weren't even online during the supposed golden era, and for many others today's internet is the only internet they've ever known.
And that's neglecting to address the amount of content and traffic available.
I'm not making a "more is better" argument, rather, I believe that "more is different", often in hard-to-appreciate ways.
The 1999 audience, and contributors, wanted to be on the Internet, for the most part. They didn't have to be there, and more importantly, most use was not directly remunerative, though some may have been self-interested (expression, proselytising, shingle-hanging, tech advocacy, targeted sales, and yes, a nascent advertising niche).
Creators could rarely hope for direct benefits, with rare exceptions ("Million Dollar Homepage", etc.)
Use now is vastly broader, it's all but essential, being widely recognised as a basic human right. Devices are easier to use, but far less generative. Even traditionally creative platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows) increasingly get in the way of, rather than facilitate, creation (the time I spend nursing rather than using systems is ... depressing).
And whilst many of the newcomers are welcomed, a large share really aren't. Their use is not aimed at general benefit, but at private and personal appropriation, often through deception and fraud.
To some degree yes, but the feeling of belonging to niche forum in the 90's and 00's, really had a different feeling today's sub-reddit, discord, slack communities.
> The internet was a lot smaller place in the past and by every measure there is orders of magnitude
This is very good point, and maybe what I'm mostly uncomfortable with. I'm uncomfortable using large web sites (like YouTube or Reddit) for community building. This could be tied to certain personality types, or lacking from something emotionally for me, but that may be what causes the feeling of missing those sites.
