The best part by far is people going out of their way to get in touch & let me know that the found a post of mine interesting or useful.
I think in the context of this article, 2020 is very recent. But otherwise, yes I agree.
Incidentally, my own site started out in 1999 as a personal site, became a poster for my writing, then back to a personal site and is now a poster for my tutoring. All the old content is still there, just with a different emphasis https://richardtaylor.co.uk/
I grew up during a bit a transitional period of the internet. My earliest memories involve playing Flash games on Newgrounds, reading about Bionicle lore online & listening to Cryoshell and Daughtry, thanks again to Bionicle. I also used to hang out on quite a few internet forums. While this is not quite the "personal website" internet advocated for in the post, it's a lot rougher and edgier than the Facebooks & Instagrams we have today.
Amongst my peers it's not really 'normal' to have a personal website - I only know one person IRL who does that, and we met because I noticed he was coding in Haskell while I was performing live music at a pub!
I do fear that personal websites will become less and less common - young techies these days basically grew up in the big tech walled gardens without any chance to experience the rougher, non-commercial web of yore. The idea of going through all the trouble to get a website going may seem pointless in a world where everyone you know is on Instagram.
Not having your own website is an opportunity missed for techies especially, I think.