In the beginning, the internet resembled a quaint village where everybody knew your name. It was largely self-governing and self-policing, with its own norms and customs. Like many insular communities it struggled with, and feared, immigration. Every September a new crop of college freshmen would get their first computers and briefly overrun the village before eventually getting assimilated into its culture.
As computers became more prevalent, Septembers got longer. Finally, in 1993, September never ended. People from all over the world were joining all the time, ceaselessly, bringing their own tastes and expectations to the nascent community. The internet became a diverse city. It developed a seedy underbelly, a hipster neighborhood, contentious politics, content moderators, culture wars.