the internet was so strange when I was a child that this is how I got on it: My parents were deeply abusive and into SATANIC PANIC. I was forbidden from playing d&d or doing anything they considered demonic. (everything.) I had a paperroute but they took all the money. I was like 9. I embezzled my own tips, waited until they were out of the house, had a SECOND PHONE LINE INSTALLED (no cellphones yet, ground lines) when they were out, then (again using my embezzled tips) signed up for dial up internet. When they found out I had the internet I told them it came with the computer, and they accepted it until I was 15. Again, I did this when I was nine. And I was perfectly safe as a nine year old on the internet. It was by and large wierd, lots of stuff didn't work or broke, but it was not vapid, unsafe, stupid, filled with mindless arguments. It was largely free (not entirely but largely) of judgment, racism or facism. There was no tracking, no paywalls, no mass access. That place, that time, has been entirely destroyed.