I'm not saying there weren't options. But you had to hear about them and learn how to use them, and then people would complain endlessly about your choices anyway.

Facebook democratized social networking.

I think the general feedback in these post are that people were using numerous tools in the decades before Facebook and they worked pretty well. I, myself, can concur what everyone's saying. I didn't have to set up a forum to chat with people who liked Tori Amos .... atforumz existed[1].

At that time I don't recall the social networks being about your local community, friends and family like Facebook is today. It was about people you would never have met - because that's what made the Internet magical at the time. It could easily have morphed into forums of friends and family - not that it would have rivaled Facebook but it could have met the need.

Socially speaking, I think the Internet is much less interesting now than it was 20 years ago.

[1] http://toriforum.proboards.com/thread/1138

Same with Facebook?