In the mid 90s the Internet was a medium that only around 1% of the world population had access to [0].
Getting online wasn't just some casual thing, people had to invest, money, time and effort to get online, so the whole "online experience" used to be treated very differently.
As everybody had to jump trough these hoops to get online, there was usually at least some shared interests about people that managed to find each other online.
Contrast that with today, where thanks to smartphones the majority of the world (65%) have access to the Internet like the most normal thing in the world, in most cases no special knowledge or major effort required anymore to "get in".
That Eternal September-esque [1] change in culture can't be reversed. Maybe it could be emulated on way smaller scales, with a lot of effort and segregation, but that would defeat the whole spirit and purpose of it.