Yeah. There was a significantly higher ratio of moderators to users back then and the way I remember it is that toxic people were banned and no one batted an eye.

Now it seems like half the internet is comprised of toxic people.

The “communities” are also huge and generic rather than smaller and topical. Back in the 90s/2000s moderators were usually enthusiasts with domain knowledge and insisting people stay on topic was a pretty solid moderation tool since the moderators’ on topic opinions usually had more value than some random troll.