I know at this point a lot of it is related to money, but there was a transitional time that led to this point that I’m still confused by.
What details changed about online spaces that made many folks more comfortable sharing so much under their real names between the “Be careful!” times to where we are now?
You aren’t wrong. There were also plenty of software-related mailing lists back in the day where folks used their real names regularly. And even if someone did go by a handle, their real name was often known anyway.
Yeah. and there were a lot of tech type folk that had a blog on domains that required ‘real names’ and more, that was quite often public.