General

No, it was always that big. The difference was ssbbws used to only be on a limited number of websites. You had to pay to see the Big Cuties, Big Hot Bombshells, Dimensions Girls, etc. Clips4sale and DA were in its infancy while YT & OF wasn't around yet.

Not only is there a lot more access thrse days, ANYONE can make "content"...you get the idea. It was always there. Just had to search harder.

Not 100% related perhaps, but last I saw, average BMIs, and similar measures have been slowly rising in all of the developed world, and even the developing world for that matter, for some time; many years in fact. So for some, the standard might be higher than it was. There's also the fat acceptance movement that's been going on for some time as well, though this will vary considerably by region.

There's also the overall rise of much faster Internet access over the last 30 years or so. Between that, and far lower barriers to regular Janes and Joes being able to publish content or posts of various sorts, even something that may have been highly niche, and perhaps still is.. it doesn't matter because of the sheer massive volume of visitors. Even a very small audience is enough.

Of course, there's also an observation I've made which is that for some FAs, sometimes their preference has increased over time, perhaps as they have become more comfortable with realizing and understanding this about themselves.

Consider: President Taft was considered a fat giant in his day. He was 6 feet even, 330 pounds maximum. I have 2 inches and almost a hundred pounds on him.
I think everybody's just getting bigger overall, so us fatties and fat lovers are forced to go bigger. Would you have considered a six hundred pound woman existing, had you not seen a 500 pound one?

Exhibit 1

Red Sovine
Song: "Phantom 309"
Year: 1967

An 'I climbed in that cab where I knew it'd be warm
At the wheel sat a big man, he weighed about 210
He stuck out his hand and said with a grin:
"Big Joe's the name," an' I told him mine
He said: "The name of my rig is Phantom 309."

definitely agree with this. Its been fun seeing how when i first started checking this stuff out most models debuted probably in the 200lb range but nowadays there's quite a few starting at 400lb+

Lots of good points here! I think another important thing to consider here is the industry is still pretty new. In the 90's there was literally only one SSBBW: Teighlor. And then a whole generation of super fats saw her and was like, "oh damn, that's a thing you can do?" and some of them did it. And now the people in that group who have done it have inspired a new group, and so on. Until now, where almost any SSBBW / USSBBW has been able to look at super fat content and go "oh look at that, you can have a whole career being fat as fuck, cool".