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.
This video captures the attitude on the Stanford campus in 2006/2007. After the $580M MySpace exit (huge for the time) many people thought it was another bubble and would pop immediately. And there was a downturn for tech in 2008/2009, but overall a 15 year bull market ensued. https://youtu.be/I6IQ_FOCE6I
The 2000s was a decade of very strong progress in videogames. This is the reason I was on the internet at that time as a teenager. My entire generation got online either for videogames or early social networks during that time.