> nobody knew how to utilize or had access to that a lot of people did. hundreds of thousands. sure it was not the population that exists today but if you were even slightly a nerd you would know about it. and it was not hard to participate. however you are partially right that even then the influx of people to usenet was huge and very damaging. i used to joke that 4chan was endless summer 2007 as a reference to eternal september 1993 as 4chan started changing that year and then really went off the deep end in 2008. much like in 1993 when usenet was destroyed by the internet users.
United States