At least those were a) just banner ads and b) not as annoying as modern JS/HTML5/popup/popover ads are. You just scrolled down a few pixel, and had 100% information.

[–] Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes we had 3 more years where numerous other variants of things like pop-up/under ads, ads that ran malicious java script, infinitely self-replicating pop-ups, ads that instantly played music at full volume, ads that kept opening themselves again as you closed them, and so on.

Basically, the time when ads were not super intrusive, on the web, was a fleeting time, in its infancy. Didn't even make it 6 years before ad blockers were required to safely use the web.