I was born in 1984, and I feel incredibly lucky that I grew up at the tail end of BBS's and the start of the dialup era. Things were changing blindingly fast, but it was still small/niche enough that you still had a strong sense of community, hackers dominated, not companies, and we all had this feeling like we could do anything.

Even the broadband era was great, too. For me, it was the mid-2000s when everything really starting going off the rails (Facebook + iPhone, mostly).