> Was there a general sense that something singularity-like was approaching?

To a degree. There was breathless expectation that this was a turning point for commerce, government and society and that everyone had to stake their claim now. Everything was going to change.

What was it going to change into? Beyond "$OLDTHING but on the Internet!!!", nobody really knew. Those first steps were just webbifying existing processes, stumbling along, refining what was reasonably successful and dumping that which wasn't.

It was like a black hole; from afar we could vaguely see an event horizon, but the people falling into it had no idea what was happening or where they were in the process.