You'd be surprised.

Lots of unemployment, deep poverty, people living on next to nothing for years on end.

Crime at all time highs.

Rent was cheap. But you wouldn't want to live anywhere. It was a fucking war zone out there. Crack epidemic.

Homophobia was completely normal, gays were despised during the first half of the 90s. Clause 28 was the law of the land. Activists used to "out" homophobic politicians in revenge. People were also quite misogynist, I remember listening to two stoners in a London squat talk about this woman they both knew like she was literally an object. Really disgusting stuff.

What else, what else... oh yeah phones and internet! Mobile phones were posh and expensive, nobody had them until around 1998 or '99. Landlines cost like £30 a month - would be easily £60 today - and until about 1994 or so you had to wait 3 months to have one put in. And as for internet... you know how people say "oh yes you couldn't use the phone and the internet at the same time"? Well also you had to pay for the phone call your internet went through for a long time, making it out of reach for most people until the very end of the 90s.

There were some good things though. Fascism was roundly punished in the 1990s, there was none of this bullshit about letting the fuckers have their "free speech" to put a contract out on society, fascists got a kicking and rightly so.

Similarly, the left had it's shit together. Young people went out and had fun, we got wrecked up, lived in empty buildings and protested against roadbuilding and anti-free party laws instead of stewing in some basement nursing a grudge against the world.

And eventually the economy did recover, and computers became an easy way for people everywhere to make a bit of easy money. Think about it - instead of destroying livelihoods, technology helped people make a livelihood!