I was student just before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September. I remember using a lot gopher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) ). There was some hype around IRC. Mosaic has arrived a bit latter. At that time everyone was discussing network applications. We were playing sun mazewar, xrisk and other connected games (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Go_server). We were using xarchie to find software. I was using xhtalk to chat with remote friends. Chess games between two remote players (single threaded X application managing two displays), remote administration were common student projects.

IMHO, if Tim Berners-Lee had not invented HTTP, someone else would have build something else to improve over gopher.