I first went online in late 1992. There wasn’t much out there then. I worked for GTE at the time, and they let employees dial into the company servers from outside. I just needed a password from IT. Remember 15.5 modems? Those were a step up from my first one!
The first useful website I found was the Stash Tea online catalog, and Amazon books shortly afterwards.
“...and Amazon books shortly afterwards.”
I didn’t get online until summer ‘96 but I think Amazon was still only selling books then. Now a good deal of my disposable income gets disposed of via Amazon. I have a tab open on Amazon now.
I think my first real uses of the Internet were work-related and this was some time in 1995. I got dialup at home in 1996. I remember playing around with a browser called “Mosaic” and it was already archaic by then. I think my first “modern” browser was Netscape 2. I remember experimenting with streaming audio back in 1997 and it sounded really choppy and unpleasant. It was interesting but I thought, shortwave radio sounds better than this! I stumbled upon a site called “Free Republic” sometime in 1997 but didn’t sign up until 2002. I remember when news was “hugh and series!” Of course, back then, the Clinton scandals were much discussed. Now all these years later we are still plagued with Clinton scandals!