Opinion: Was Hardcore better in the past, or is it better in the present?

There are a lot of people who insist that Hardcore Techno was much more bold, creative, innovative in the 90s - while the other group keeps to the opinion that Hardcore of today is the improved version, and therefore, much better.
It's a heated debate, and one of the most often held debates in the"Hardcore" scene, especially on the internet - in social media and so on.
What is my point of view on this? As I've been pushing 90s Hardcore a lot with my mixes, books, and other things, one might suspect I agree with the former group. But that is not necessarily the case.
Because most of the time, the debate fails to see an important aspect of the whole issue.
Which is that one first has to look what is actually meant with "Hardcore of the past" and "Hardcore of today".
Now, those who talk about Hardcore of the past, often refer to labels and acts like Industrial Strength, Nasenbluten, Napalm, Senical, Drop Bass Network, maybe even Fischkopf, Praxis or Anticore, etc. You get the point.
But that was not what the majority of people in the actual 90s thought of when you mentioned the word "Hardcore Techno" or "Gabber" to them.
For example, here in Germany, the "general population" probably would have said something like "Ah, Hardcore, that is stuff like Scooter, or Dune, right?" when you talked with them (Dune had a big chart hit with their track "Hardcore Vibes" and afterwards a lot of people considered them to be the pinnacle of the Hardcore movement).
But let's get beyond the general population; the majority of people who were into what they thought to be "Hardcore" or "Gabber" bought the usual compilations like Thunderdome etc. and were barely aware of the projects I mentioned above. Maybe 2% of 90s Gabbers, who listened to the usual CDs, went to the big parties, wore Gabber clothes and so on, were aware of Industrial Strength. Maybe 0,001% of them knew of Fischkopf.
That type of music was really just a very, very small scene of people that still managed to connect worldwide somehow, but the mainstream of the Hardcore scene just ignored it.
Keep in mind that was before the days of the internet as it is today. The major way Hardcore and Gabber was dispersed was through CDs in chain stores or super markets etc. And these usually had always the same type of artists and productions on them, mostly ID&T influenced.

Keep also in mind that Hardcore and Gabber was really big and a huge part of the youth culture in the 90s, at least in many European countries (a thing that is often omitted from all the various "90s flashback" documentaries in the media).
So, that means in the big music chain stores there were literally hundreds of Hardcore CDs available (not all in the same store and at the same time, of course). So you went to a big store, and looked around, and there were CDs by Aerosmith, Smashing Pumpkins, Tina Turner, and ah, next to them suddenly Thunderdome and Earthquake and so on. There were also a lot of Hardcore "clones" with cheap produced stuff that tried to cash in on the hype - as well as countless of compilations that mostly consisted of "normal" Hardtrance, Techno or Acid tunes, that just got the name "Hardcore" slapped on the cover because the companies thought it would sell better this way.
So, there were a lot of things available - but it was almost impossible to find some stuff with Fischkopf on it, or Bloody Fist, or anything like that! Here in Germany, even finding a Ruffneck or Mokum CD at a store could be a challenge.

So the above mentioned music was the "Hardcore" most people listened to and knew of - and not Zekt or Senical. That's what they thought of when one mentioned Hardcore, that was the "Hardcore of the day" for them.

Of course, there were DJs and crate diggers, who went to special stores and so on, and knew of the good stuff. But these were very few people - and without today's internet, other ways to get hold of this music were few as well.
Maybe it was regionally a bit different - it could be that in the USA for example, among the Hardcore crowd, the percentage of people into the rough Hardcore was higher. But I'm not sure.

With the advent of the modern internet, though, this changed a lot. People began to search for Hardcore on sites like Discogs and discovered more stuff. You can preview a lot of formerly virtually unknown 90s Hardcore tunes on sites like YouTube. The few remaining "Freak Hardcore Heads" from the 90s began to talk about their favorite tunes from back in the days on social media sites. All this helped to bring the more "out there" form of Hardcore in the spotlight. This changed the view of what is considered to be "Hardcore of the 90s". So, nowadays you have more people who rightfully consider D.O.A. to be "Hardcore of the 90s", and less people who say "Hardcore of the 90s, that was Scooter and Dune".

Now, the thing is: the same is, or will be, the case for "Hardcore of today". We are in exactly the same situation!
There are many big labels, artists, in today's Hardcore scene, and many, many people know these, and there are huge festivals where these acts and DJs play, and a lot of people visit these parties. And this is what is considered to be "Today's Hardcore".
But that is not true! There are countless of artists who produce Hardcore that is very different to what is released on the big labels or being played at the festivals. And, in my opinion, there are many artists in today's world of Hardcore, that are just as good, or even better, than the acts and labels of back in the day. But the majority of these people are completely unknown in the "wider Hardcore Techno" scene. The majority of people seem to just listen to the same few acts and labels, and are not aware of the world beyond that.

That is a problem, and it should be changed (but that topic would demand a text of it's own, so it will not be addressed here).

So, in the world of today, currently, right now, there is so much brilliant, awesome Hardcore being produced and released (and every week there seems to be coming more), that is still violent and rule-breaking and has new ideas. It's just that most of it - stays unknown, or just becomes known for a small group of people. Not quite different from how it was in the 90s.

This is the issue when talking about "Hardcore of today vs Hardcore of the past". When you say Hardcore of today, do you mean the good stuff, or the stuff everyone knows?

As I said, in my opinion, Hardcore of today is just as good and better as in the past. One just has to focus on (and find!) the right stuff.