It took me several years of exposure to see the point of the internet. I had been running my own BBSes for quite a while by then.

We already had email more or less, at least in ways that mattered. And the experience was non-commercial and personal, with operators putting a lot of time and effort into their quirky online worlds.

Some of it's still around if you go look for it, but I can't shake the feeling that we lost something worth keeping.