It's not tenuous, 15 years ago plus sites that you could interact with other people developed, they were very simple but they gave people a new module and methiod to communicate with each other; forums.
As an example, The BBC saw their page hits mount exponentially when they switched the 666 message boards on, people could communicate on specialist topics they wanted to discuss.
Facebook came from the same concept talking about female college students (typical US college stuff) on something called Facemash. Eventually with funding Zuckerberg created facebook on the same concepts, forums where people could link with friends and family to communicate using the concepts of friends reunited. Twitter does the same in 140 characters, instagram and snapchat with pictures. Everything derives from those original message board beginnings and the earliest websites, evolution!