This is great. A few more thoughts; I was in academia at the time. After the crash, tech was essentially out of the headlines through the 2000s. After 9/11, all anyone cared about was terrorism. It wasn’t till 2009-10 (iPhone) that tech went vertical again. And 2013 before tech was taken seriously by “the culture
Like, through the 2000s, most people could get away without using the internet all the time. Yes, search. Yes, email. But Google Maps only came out in 2005. Internet Explorer held back the web forever. Rails/Django were like 2006-2007. Git in 2007-2008. The whole ecosystem as we know it is only ~10 years old.
Your analysis is not complete. During these years, tech progressed abroad. In Europe, 9/11 was quickly forgotten and it's impact was minimal on tech adoption.