"By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s." - Paul Krugman, 1998 https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/revolutions/miscellany/paul...

One could argue that it wasn’t the internet that was the ultimate catalyst, it was the cpu performance. There were various networks in place before the internet (really the World Wide Web) appeared. But the iron was too slow to do what’s done now.

Catalog systems existed forever. Maybe the only truly new service in the web was selling bits of your self for free services? And I’m not sure that’s a win for individuals.