In 2005 there were <1B users, today there are >5B. Most of those first billion were online because they WANTED to be online, they built personal websites, ran message boards and operated projects like Albinoblacksheep because they wanted to interact with other like minded nerds. Now most users are online because they have a phone, and phones are so limiting that all they can really do is scroll through feeds and ‘share’ links (try editing HTML on your phone some time).
In 2005 there were <1B users, today there are >5B. Most of those first billion were online because they WANTED to be online, they built personal websites, ran message boards and operated projects like Albinoblacksheep because they wanted to interact with other like minded nerds. Now most users are online because they have a phone, and phones are so limiting that all they can really do is scroll through feeds and ‘share’ links (try editing HTML on your phone some time).