I was there too and basically nobody said that. Crypto being "like the early internet" and "people said that the web was a waste of time too!" are the biggest crypto lies ever told and repeated. Absolute whoppers.
There were definitely a lot of people saying that, usually after losing a lot of money with crazy investments that 'could not fail'. On actual 9/11 (that's why I remember it very well; during the meeting the CEO's secretary came in and told about a large attack on the US), I was at a large Dutch client of ours who said they will cancel all internet projects and move back to Windows only software. The CEO had lost millions listening to his accountants and investing in World Online [0] and had no faith anymore this 'web thing' would go anywhere. A large insurer who also was our client, scrapped the webbased employee benefits project they started in 1999 in favour of a Windows client.
I exaggerate, but in the run up neighbours were telling everyone to just buy Microsoft, and everyone tech adjacent I knew was trying to make an e-commerce website. I was just graduating out of university and web dev jobs evaporated. Many e-commerce companies went bust, or were acquired (my gf at the time experienced layoff after layoff until she went). At that time everyone I knew was not thinking about doing anything web related.
Probably the smart money knew that the builders who kept going had a chance to run up when the market came back on the excitement of what they built, but my social circle were not privy to those conversations.
Seems peoples perspectives are different, who would have thought?
Personally, I was working with computers back then too, and most people who also didn't work with computers at that point always asked me "When are you gonna get a real job?" and told me "the Internet is just a fad".
But again, your experience could very well have been different.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Online#Post_IPO