So what's left?
Back in late 90s, 2000s, even 2010s, the internet was truly awesome. Only once governments started to get involved, by increasing the red tape and adding restrictions and whatnot, it became shit.
So I would argue that you are completely wrong. Yes, it might have been a bit of a wild west, but that is a good thing because you needed to have some smarts to navigate it and that filtered out the dumb masses that pollute it today and why we cannot have nice things.
I am not saying people should not have access to it, just that the less people there were, the better it was and the less attention it had by the governments. Which in turn made it much better experience than it is today.
But most people, actually, have not lived through those "early" days and cannot even comprehend how great it was back then and how crappy and restricted it is today.