There were also tech sites that reviewed computer hardware in writing. Sometimes with pictures. There were websites with video game walkthroughs - also in text, with pictures! There were websites with silly things people wrote about, and funny stories, and the usual tinfoil hat stuff. But the tinfoil hat stuff was secluded away on a tinfoil webring on angelfire.

There were tons of stores. Usually the more legit ones partnered with yahoo shopping or whatever. I remember buying Pokemon Yellow from a video game store based out of Canada lol. I think it was called dragon.ca? There were TONS of places. Some would take a week to ship but you usually got your stuff. :D

IRC had something for everyone. Those networks had tens of thousands of people online at any given time, talking about everything from tech to trash (literally) lol.

There were also web directories. As I recall, google started off using one of those as a source.

There was also stuff like AOL that had its own little ecosystem of corporate-sponsored stuff.