IRCs, webrings, personal pages, obscure FTP and BBS sites. Everything because it was fragmented. Nowadays discussions and content only happen within the rails of what big tech allows.
Discussion
FTPing into friends' servers and seeing what's up and into what kind of obscure shit they had been reading was such a cool feeling
all of those things still exist, and are used, and are fun. but some people seem unwilling to do anything anymore unless everyone else does it first. obscurity is terrifying to those who crave the company and acceptance of the mob