>When compared to not existing at all, being slow wasn't all that awful.

slow is relative to the use, anyway

I remember the first time I saw the real time chat function of ICQ, where people could see you typing with not that much delay, I was utterly fascinated that such a thing was even happening

normal web pages not filled with animated gifs were not unbearably slow either

"slow" is what happened if you tried to use Real Player and saw that dreaded "buffering" every 5 seconds of video