It's more before and after having a GUI web, which wasn't so much a matter of Andreessen inventing it (which happened in like 1994/1995) as it was ISP's switching over from shell accounts for their users so most people could use it (which was more 1997 - 1999 or so.)
Before that most of the social internet was usenet and IRC. Usenet in particular reminded me a lot of what reddit was for a while (especially reddit old) and what I could see the fediverse turning into.
My technics earbuds briefly connecting to my MacBook and my MacBook proceeding to launch an Apple Music sign up screen over whatever I'm working on in the 5 seconds between me turning music off on my phone and putting my earbuds away says otherwise. Apple are assholes too. They're subtler about it than Microsoft but also much, much smugger.