[tsavo]

While message boards and irc still exist and could be considered "echo chambers", social media began kicking off in mid-2000s with their algorhythmic echo chambers.

Also around this time period was growth in blogging, further pulling people away from homepages to "personal pages". Even in the days of Geocities, many people would hit a homepage prior to potentially visiting their own site.

And while smart phones did play a role in the trend, changes to web browsers on PC devices with their own "start pages" with news/content operating as pseudo-homepages further contributed to the shift for non-smartphone users.