

In many ways it was better. More organic and even the big names like google and amazon were more quirky upstarts rather than the evil megacorporations they are today.
That said lets not sugarcoat it too much. The early 2000s were edgelord central and message boards like 4chan and something awful were quite influential. Then you had gaming message boards like gamefaqs and the like. Woof so much bad trolling. Some of it funny and well done to the point of art but most just abrasive and annoying. The small message boards and communities were amazing though.
It really was remarkable how hated this device was at the time and I say this as one of the kids online laughing and calling it the taco gauge and ridiculing it for the side talking which lets be real isnt that egregious(and actually in what is likely intentional design the shell around the screen when placed to ear looks a lot like a side profile of an old phone). I do sometimes think back to it and how in hindsight it was just a smartphone that played games.
It was a little too ahead of it’s time.