You're not wrong. We're talking about different eras--and it sounds like you may have been around a bit longer. The mostly libertarian/individualistic (I would dare say _left libertarian_, who seem now to be pretty much politically extinct) era was notable to me in the late 90s through about the mid-aughts. This transitioned into a more progressive culture somewhere in the 05-08 era -- and its rise and fall pretty well overlapped with Twitter's, as best I can tell.

I can't directly speak to The Culture Of The Internet before about '97.