I think they’re saying they miss not having to worry about being used by randos. if you were around in the early days of the web, there were definitely a lot of people trying a lot of things (I tried on more than a few different personas when I was a young teen in the mid nineties), but almost none of it was for profit, it was just people trying things.
I'm a woman. A high percentage of the time, when people are looking to use me, it's for sex or "emotional labor." A very high percentage of people who expect me to care about them and their welfare have a "Giving Tree" mental model of what love looks like and they very much expect it to be a one way street.
This has mostly always been true in my life, both online and off. I'm just much more aware that I am merely being bled by people who will do absolutely nothing in return for me and who will, in fact, shit all over me if I bring up my needs and wants at all. They explicitly expect a woman to do nice things for free for them. Expecting something in return offends them in the extreme.
I'm quicker to cut people off than I used to be. It doesn't lead to the kinds of mutually beneficial relationships I desire, but I spend far less time feeling bled for my time, energy, expertise and wisdom by people who explicitly think women should give those things away for free and who saw zero problem with that abusive expectation even when I was literally homeless and going hungry. That was not their problem and how dare I suggest they should care about that.
