Was a lot of it classic word of mouth, email, etc.?
I imagine something like that, but I’m wondering as I feel like there may be some useful pieces of knowledge that may be worth recalling as people gradually start to move back out of the more centralized sites/services.
i ran a few sites that grew organically from a base of locally dialed-up-to BBS systems…back in the aol/compuserv days. some BBSs became original gateways to local internet access.