In the pre-web world email, FTP (or going back further Kermit), Usenet and for some IRC was the Internet for most users. For many who weren't directly connecte

In the pre-web world email, FTP (or going back further Kermit), Usenet and for some IRC was the Internet for most users. For many who weren't directly connected, things like UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) was used to batch transfer email and Usenet feeds in the middle of the night. Anonymity was the norm. Plaintext passwords (telnet/FTP) in transit... when passwords were even used.[1] Everything was standards-based and mostly text-based. Text based UIs... even the GUIs on high-end (for the time) desktops were just wrappers around text. Manually maintained host files in the pre-DNS world. No advertising.[1] No user tracking. Server logs were considered chaff and discarded after a couple of months if there were no security/server issues to investigate. Slow... yet felt more responsive since getting 2k of text only took a bit over 2k of data transfer rather than the 500k+ it takes on many pages today with their Javascript/CSS/etc payloads. While primitive, to someone tech savvy who grew up with tech in the last 10 years it probably wouldn't feel completely alien... just spartan and antiquated. [1] It's really hard to convey this but because the community was so much smaller back then bad behavior could and would get you banned from the few key service providers, servers available and/or shunned by other users. So if you wanted to be online you generally behaved semi-decently or you were gone. It was not uncommon for complete a-holes to be killfile-d by many on Usenet effectively rendering them invisible. Spamming people's email would get you filtered (sometimes at the server level) and, again, rendered you invisible. If none of that worked, complaints would pile up with your service provider (while you could be anonymous, your provider often wasn't in the form of mail/Usenet headers) and depending on how bad it was they (often your school or employer for most) would have no problem terminating your access. The rise of AOL really marked the beginning of the end of these norms... (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)