I miss a high bar for entry that meant most of the people online were at a relatively small collection of universities, tech companies, or government and public

I miss a high bar for entry that meant most of the people online were at a relatively small collection of universities, tech companies, or government and public service agencies. It was elitist for sure, but sometimes that is not a bad thing and the level of conversation was something we will never see again. I miss being able to read everything interesting on Usenet over a long lunch sitting in front of a vt220. It was slow, but you didn't mind because it was all text based. The protocols were open and barely compressed so it was easy to explore and play around with things. A few hours in a wiring closet with a punch-down tool, a crimper, and spools of cable could be used to create magic. There was no money to be made so no one took it too seriously. There were vast spaces to explore; we didn't know as much as we do now about what is and is not possible (and what can or cannot be solved with technical solutions to what turn out to be meatspace problems) so every crazy idea held a kernel of possibility.