Imageboards were very different the more back you go in time. Back in the days imageboards users consisted of fringe nerds and autists. They might be schizo and weird, but the average IQ was much higher than the average population had.
Today normies and face tattooed criminal bydlo have found imageboard and are probably a majority already.
So the userbase is completely different, and it would be a blatant lite to say that things are the same.