It was 96/97. I remember thinking "The drones are moving in on this."

Canter and Siegel had nuked Usenet in 1994, and banners were invented in 1994 by Hotwired. But it took a while for the tech to eat the web, because the web was a niche interest for the first few years.

During that time you could - and a lot of people did - put together a simple site with a text editor and free hosting supplied by your ISP.