True, although keep in mind that while USENET's bandwidth was definitely sponsored, the technology (above the TCP layer) was built by hackers as a side project. At some point Larry Wall (e.g.) got a job just being himself, but for a long time he had unrelated professional responsibilities.

Since the bandwidth funding model has now bubbled down to the consumer marketplace, it seems like the conditions are right for a huge variety of services. Actually that was starting to happen before the web swallowed all other services. Don't get me wrong, the web was/is a great thing, but it severely dumbs down the range of protocol expression. The state of websockets in 2016 is a weak imitation of IRC or MUD capabilities more than 20 years ago (never mind adoption problems).

I guess that's a curse of being "good enough". The better has an uphill battle.