It was a different time, but probably not that different figuratively.
Things like Shatner taking Priceline stock to be their spokesperson played into the dot-com mania narrative of the time, but now that's seen as a shrewd business move. 50 Cent had a $60-100 million exit with Vitamin Water and Lebron had a $30 million exit with Beats.
I believe Alanis took mp3.com stock as payment.
That was a different time.
The Beam-it software was pretty cool.