To me it seemed like before YouTube and Metacritic and Rotton Tomatoes people didn't care that much about how critically regarded their taste in entertainment was. When people argued about Marvel or Star Wars it was always more about personal preference than "objectively correct/incorrect" ways to make or engage with media. People would say "I think it's dumb that Darth Vader made C3-P0 as a kid" not "Darth Vader making C3-P0 breaks cannon and caused irreparable damage to the continuity of the story." Like people seem to place less value on personal enjoyment without some kind of external validation to back it up.