> Yes. usenet, however, used to be social media. It was like text-only reddit.

Except, unlike Reddit, it wasn't centralized nor owned by a single corporation.

Usenet users did not have to obey the rules and whims of any corporation and there was thriving ecosystem of feature rich, free and open Usenet clients.

I really miss having my own killfiles and regex search abilities that were common on Usenet clients, but is missing from the Reddit clients and its web UI.

I don’t believe it was or continually is limited to text only, but I do believe we had netiquette back then which helped to reconsider spamming internet with media and other decorators, only to have it all forgotten 72h later

Still is, but a bit empty. https://eternal-september.org/

Usenet could exist only because people could behave, unfortunately. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of shitfest Usenet as a social media platform would turn into today.

The eternal September complaint comes to mind, but even eternal September was a jolly walk in the park compared to what modern social media has turned into.