There's a rant that can follow this about usability peaking in the late 90s/early 2000s. Back when companies care about usability research over aesthetics. Buttons looked like buttons yadda yadda.
Back in the days where you didn't have to concentrate to grab a window slider, because it was wider than 3 pixels. When the slider itself had more than 1% contrast with the slider bar, and you could easily see how far down the page you were...
But also in the days where some lunatic claimed black-on-gray had more visibility than black-on-white, and every webpage suddenly became, well, like HN.
I have, in fact, fallen for thinking a page didn't have much in the way of content because the scroll bar was hidden. I did not scroll down because there was no indication that you could scroll. So I did not even try. Why would I?
But also in the days where some lunatic claimed black-on-gray had more visibility than black-on-white, and every webpage suddenly became, well, like HN.
But I'm old.