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Usenet and mailing lists were usable by the cognoscenti from the mid-80s up to the "modern age." Using gopher and Archie and anonymous ftp was for the cognoscenti only, though. Not much fun for ordinary folks.
This obviously all changed around 1994, with Mosaic/Netscape. "Point and click" cleared the way. The illusion of "going to" a site (URLs) did the trick.
Faster computers weren't important, in my view. Better screens were only slightly important. Modem speeds were more important.
I'd say the most important thing was content. The content that existed pre-94/95 was only interesting to those who liked their amusements with something vaguely resembling "intellectual" content, or the computer "cognoscenti". Mosaic/Nutscrape changed that. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural