Ha, agreed fully that the "old internet" was far more of a cesspool than most care to remember. We look back with rose-colored glasses. We remember the good and forget the bad.

USENET was not only every bit as bad as the worst of 4chan -- it was worse, because there was no effective moderation.

That said, there was also a large "signal" component in the "old internet" that is now lacking in most of the New Internet. Places like HN remain as lonely outposts of that lost world, where people wrote in entire paragraphs, to convey complex and meaningful ideas for mutual discussion -- rather than just firing punchy little 140 character epithets and 10 second insta-videos off into the void and then forgetting about them, moving on to the next flash in the goldfish attention span pan.

That level of sustained, complex actually seems like it was more common on the "old Internet," even recognizing fully that the "old Internet" was also overflowing with dross and garbage.