Might also be that "finally," everyone's internet sped up enough to keep up with the content we sought. For instance, I was still on dial-up when I first entered this site.
Not much longer, I was on cable with a hundred times faster connection speeds. These days I am over a hundred times over the hundred times again, but I do not want to bruise my thinky parts with this progression.
But those early days were dark, to put it mildly.