In the early 90s, people hung out there and exchanged ideas and information. It was a truly chaotic time where people were riding net splits to take over channels (and then get neutered because someone gave a relay operator a good verbal bj.) That was before the dotcom boom, before zuck, when gatekeepers were on chat rooms that you could just hyphenate and then run your own, if you didn't like the other guy.

Think of it like a fully transient nostr.