Counter-strike was my introduction to how the Internet and TCP/IP worked. I built my first PC to play it. I learned linux to run servers for it. It inspired me and my friends to learn C to try and make our own mod. I made a website for my clan, self hosted it, and registered a domain for it.
The community was incredible, partly because of the server browser, as you point out. There was also a massive IRC community around it that was way more cohesive than what exists today. So CS was also my on ramp to IRC and the technology communities there.
I don't play a lot of games any more. Every now and then I'll try something. I have the GPU anyway and everything works great on Linux now. I found out there are third party server browsers for CS2 with modded servers. It is so tiny compared to the old days, but they exist. I played around on a couple around a year ago and had a good time. If you are feeling nostalgic, you should check it out.