Alright, time to ramble about the old days. I might stray specifically from politics from time to time, but you should find what you seek in here, I hope.
Well, as one might expect, there was a wide variety of political leanings, but it seems like you're most interested in political differences pertaining to the time around those involved in tech. When I was young in the 90s, in the tech world, there was a very strong focus philosophically on the importance of privacy and data freedom. This was pervasive throughout anyone interested in tech and was not really controversial at all. Look at the spread of open source software spearheaded by idealistic hero Richard Stallman. This spread at this time due to a fear of companies monopolizing programs, to lock them behind a wall that was inaccessible to anyone outside of that company. Ironically, massive companies nowadays use GPL licensed open source software to lock other proprietary software behind it, laws be damned, but I digress...
People were wary about oversharing, and nearly everyone completely separated an online presence with their 'meatspace' identity (to borrow an old cyberpunk term). People pretty much only used what we called 'handles' online, our nickname that would be used pretty much everywhere, in my personal experience. People were generally more trusting despite this, and it wasn't uncommon for people to have meetups on local BBSs, though that's not something I ever did.
I would say many people were far more individualistic in the tech world than in general. It was a place where nerds sought refuge, as it required knowledge and money to participate in the very early days. 90s nerds were not considered cool. Being a nerd meant you were kind of a social pariah, and the internet was our safe haven. Conversations were thorough and full of long conversations. Long posts like this were extremely common, and no one would think of posting a TL;DR, you just were expected to read it or not. People argued over whether AD&D 1st edition was better than 2nd edition, over whether Picard was really a better captain than Kirk, and etc... Of course, there still was plenty of trolling as well, but for the most part, the average person you talked with was assumed to be communicating in good faith. Interestingly, you did have non nerds with a lot of money that participated sometimes but they were the exception, not the rule.
There was an admittedly fringe movement in the wild west of the internet at the time that believed that all data should be free and freely available to everyone. I'm not sure what you would call that, but it's something I believed for a time, being pretty radical (see below). You have to remember that there we very little out there knowledge wise compared to today. No one would ever dream of sharing their personal information openly where anyone could see until grandma and that kid down the street that ate paint started using the internet.
I was always a libertarian myself, but I feel as though the average impression of a libertarian is quite a bit different today than it was back then. I was never any kind of religious fundamentalist. I was mostly interested in a removal of all laws that didn't directly harm another person. I was very critical of 'slippery slope' arguments, if x leads to y and y is still illegal, who cares about x? Were there more libertarians then than now? I have no idea.
What I realized as I got older is that most people do need a lot of laws to protect other people from them being shitty to others. The laws are not really for me, as I'm naturally very conscientious about this stuff, they're for the people that either don't know enough or care enough to self-regulate their emotions as it pertains to limiting another persons pursuit of happiness. But, I'm not here to get in to it about personal politics.
Interestingly, my dad in the 90s talked about 'the spirit of the internet', but said that it was already dead. The spirit of the internet, as he explained it to me, imparted to me a sense of true community, because you're one of the very, very small number of people who used it. People would always help you with questions, people were civil, you were one of the 'in' group, and respect was a default. Come to think of it, I think it was a spectrum. I felt 'the spirit of the internet' in those days far, far more than I do now, even though my dad said it was dead by then.
Of course, I'm sure you're old enough to remember a time before politics was nearly as polarized as it was now. I'm reminded of Chris Farley parodying Newt Gingrich on CSPAN in front of congress. It was absolutely hilarious, and Republicans laughed about it as hard as the Democrats did. People generally had much thicker skins in those days, and I don't really remember outrage porn being a thing at all. This is not to say things weren't contentious of course, but there was respect on both sides that each was arguing in good faith. Compared to today, due to this increased polarization, I'd say that people, by modern standards, are quite a bit more moderate across the board.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlM_IFCNgKw
Those days, sadly, are long gone. But, everything goes in cycles, though I get the feeling this cycle is going to be a long one.
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