Yeah, I think the difference is how disconnected from the real world the internet/web felt in the 90s. It felt like a different dimension you entered - and "cyberspace" was non ironically talked about as a separate space, and culturally people wanted it to be a separate space with separate norms.

Now it kinda feels like the two worlds have encroached so far on each other they mostly overlap - and both seem hell bent on ruining the other.