I missed the entire era. Never used it. No idea. Guess I just didn't have a use for it. Kind of like when smart phones started getting popular. Got my first "cell" phone in 1990, a motorola bag phone so just having a "phone" was not that big of a deal.
I had it early on but eventually uninstalled it because random people pinging me while I was busy doing something else was annoying. Joke's on me because 25 years on, the entire internet is like that.
I had something called Sierra's Imagination Network. It was back in 94 and I used that to chat with friends or just to play online games with my dad. A lady I worked with used ICQ to pick up unsuspecting men. She was like 600 pounds and smelled like rancid garbage sitting out in the sun. I assumed that ICQ was some dating site and never bothered.