IMO there's "the Internet before Canter and Siegel" and "the Internet after Canter and Siegel".

On the pre C&S Internet, not only was nothing monetized, there was a sense that even having an ad for something commercial was against the culture. The downside was that the pre C&S Internet was small, slow and limited.

Overall, I think the 2025 Internet is much better than 1994. But, there were certainly things to appreciate about an Internet without ads, without algorithms trying to win the attention economy, etc.