To continue with IRC as an example, having access to a shell account where you could set up a bouncer to lurk 24/7 in your channels was simply beyond the grasp of most people.
So the people you had available to create communities with were those who were invested in keeping things nice. Why bother with all that overhead only to read shitpost memes and rage bait?
Today the default mode for everyone is to be always online. It’s actually harder to disconnect now. The quality of the communities reflects this.
Still is. IRC is much the same as it has ever been.
"Computers suppress our animal presence. When you communicate through a computer, you communicate like an angel."
Sure you had arguments. That's where 'flamewar' came from. But quickly people tired of that and created *.advocacy sub-newsgroups to let people vent in their corner of the net.
Then domains were opened up for commerce a few years later and eternal September became a thing... The net never recovered, it just used up more bandwidth.
But ppl were definitely much more open and trustworthy back then. You could start a conversation with any random stranger and they wouldnt immediately dismiss you as some sort of scammer. Try that today and people will immediately flag you as a scammer
Security was awful for both the client and server. Who needs a warrant when all the user data is an SQL injection away? Broswers not fussy about https, Java Applets, flash, browser toolbars, XSS - the Internet must have been like an open book for anyone with access to backbone traffic.