Yes, it was truly free. Because: My house. My rules. Anyone can build their own house.

I also find the whole following culture creepy stalkerish. A lot of times I feel obligated to follow back and end up discovering that person’s entire whole icky persona..and wish that I could just have superficial friendships maybe.

I would still vote IRC over BBS. It was the right amount of cozy and distance. Just what you were willing to implement.

Also..I often think about the Dunbar Number. Even when I design small farm systems, I use the Dunbar limit and cluster to determine how many people can cooperate either as farmer collective or even as customer base(as in they are willing to share/barter).

Human beings are better in small groups. The small groups in turn can interact collectively with other like minded collectives. It seems like we haven’t studied human behaviour and psychology sufficiently to suit the really fast paced growth of social media and it’s interactions.

The internet was truly free because creating your own IRC network was both acceptable and commonplace. Creating your own Twitter on the other hand... Mastodon may just solve this though.