I think it was when the internet was corporatized. I remember back as a kid browsing around the internet and I laughed my ass off that Colgate had a website. My early 90’s teenage brain could not figure out why toothpaste would need a web presence. I fired up a browser and I looked at what other brands that I figured would never need a website.

If I’d had a credit card that day I’d be a multimillionaire. Sadly domains were still crazy expensive and I was 13.

Short story long, it wasn’t much longer before the internet became essentially a giant ad machine/captive social media network.