There was also serious backlash from certain people (cough TIM BERNERS LEE cough) that adding images to the web would degrade the user experience, encourage bad use cases, and encourage the riffraff to use it.

Why yes, I still remember that, why do you ask?

But it did degrade the user experience, encourage bad use cases, and encourage the riffraff to use it. The easiest way to eliminate those problems is to not have users.

Why'd you have to go making things popular? I could still be using Lynx on a 1200 baud modem!

I'd rather be using Lynx on a 1200 baud modem. I was far more productive back then without the distractions of hacker news etc.

Tim, is that you?

See, if you hadn't let the riffraff in, you'd know for sure...

WorldWideWeb had image support well before this (in a separate window?), and certain included inline images c1993-1994. Seems like an odd thing to do if Tim didn't like them.

And here you were, an upstart kid, creating this newfangled "browser" so that anybody (anybody?!) could see the Web! The temerity of it! ;-)