lol... In the late 80s, early 90s, I operated a BBS system on a few dial-in landlines. And around the upstate, the various system operators pretty much all knew each other and kept up with the developments. I remember it was around 1993 or 94 that several of us were gathered at one operators house, drinking beer and playing DOOM. One of the guys, who was a computer science major at the university, got us to all gather around at his desk as he dialed up the college servers, and from there accessed.... the internet. It was slow, but there in front of us was the Ferrari website. (or maybe Lambo... can't remember for sure)
It wasn't long after that when we all starting to close down our small boards.
Anyway, my point would be that people were online when moot was 5, and the internet community existed a good ten years before
.