The stock-market valuations of the late 1990s were excessive, but the objectives of the actual companies were fairly reasonable. Trading... over the internet. Order your pet food... over the internet. Eventually many of these things actually happened, they just weren't done by the "first movers" who were represented in the stock market bubble.

What's happening now, in the cryptocurrency milieu, is more deranged. It's to the point that it's making technology itself seem like a joke.