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.
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.
Healthy dividends and massive growth; you should have listened to them!
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.