That hasn't been my experience. The problem is do you expect it to be seen by thousands upon thousands of people? That wasn't a thing back then and it's not now either. You get a handful of hits, as you always did. The big numbers are the algorithm's game, though for many people, they've become normalized. If 1000 people see your niche little project, that's a failure by modern standards. That was huge success for a noname nobody 20+ years ago.

I feel like we're talking about fundamentally different things here. I'm not talking about Show HN style "look at my project, everyone!" stuff. I'm talking about literally just speaking to other like-minded people about your interests.