The eternal September was 1993. I remember that change well and the earlier flavour I remember nostalgically. And it was tied to the rise of the web. There's a good argument to say the web killed the internet.
But all things change. Every phase has good and bad points. IMHO
* all the music referred to by said encyclopedia (Napster)
* an impressive number of books referred to by said encyclopedia (Demonoid)
* 2010s bonus-- a lot of the scientific articles cited by said encyclopedia (Scihub)
* 2010s bonus-- a searchable cache of stupid questions to do an end-run around the pain of interacting with the asocial gate-keepers who wish the internet wasn't so full of people (StackOverflow)
* an archive of all the stuff you're nostalgic for (archive.org and Google's copy/paste of usenet junk)
My internet is like O'Brien to your Winston from 1984-- its mind includes yours.
But all things change. Every phase has good and bad points. IMHO