My dad had a simpler take: The early Internet was filtered essentially by wealth and intelligence. You had to have a (relatively) expensive setup, and you had t

My dad had a simpler take: The early Internet was filtered essentially by wealth and intelligence. You had to have a (relatively) expensive setup, and you had to be the type to be "on the bleeding edge" of technology. That didn't necessarily mean you were a "nerd" or "weird". This group included researchers at government labs, university professors, military, etc... Anywhere where the Internet had early adoption was over-represented. I remember NASA and CERN as significant fractions of the entire Internet in the earliest days! I remember debates on the talk.origins usenet newsgroup with very highly educated priests, some at the highest levels of the church. These people wouldn't give me the time of day now! In some sense it's the same filter that a University admissions process applies, and companies like Google try to reproduce.