The internet was 19 years old in 2001, and it's 44 now. To me, turning off the NSF backbone in 1995 marks the end of the early internet, because that's when commercial traffic was allowed everywhere with no restrictions. So I'm with you, but others will have different opinions.

In 2001 downloading a video could take days and the phone ringing could torpedo that download. Playing RTS games online was like a game of russian roulette