Having Internet, in any form, is different from not having internet

[u/glowing-fishSCL]

I got my first home internet connection in 1998. (Actually, college dorm room, but same thing).

Any form of internet is so transformational, and changed the way we look at the world, so much, that all types of internet are closer to each other than they are to not having internet. In 1998, I had dial-up on a 56K modem. It took at least 10 minutes to download a 3 minute song. Webpages loaded 100k pictures bit by bit. There was no file sharing or embedded video.

That 1998 internet is closer to my 2026 internet where I have a smartphone and can watch movies and upload my own videos and where I am getting pinged about social events all the time---all of that, however different it is from 1998, is still closer to 1998 than 1998 was to pre-internet time.

(This is a "Hot take", so I might be overstating the case a little, but I think people that grew up with the internet don't realize how much of a change it made, and focus on differences in formats, rather than how similar any type of internet is)

[u/Roto-Chileno]

I completely agree. I started on the internet at age 12/13 in mid-2004. I had a curiosity about vintage 78 rpm records, gramophones, Victrolas, etc. Being a kid from Chile with minimal knowledge of English, I started to learn the language by going to a local cibercafé, downloading US and European webpages from knowledgeable collectors and researchers on the subject, translating them at home using a basic CD translator (Power Translator), and then rewriting the pages for myself in understandable Spanish on Word. Within a year, I could defend myself in English, had learned everything about my hobby (in extreme detail), and had basically transformed myself into a "serious" 78 collector (just like any middle-aged or older, English-speaking enthusiast on the subject). I discovered a lot of vintage musicians, singers, and jazz bands available in .mp3, which would have taken a lifetime to find on elusive, actual 78 records (including many that weren't exported to South America during their heyday). A pre-teen kid began to exchange emails with older collectors from the States and the UK, and developed an educated, lifelong passion that is still alive to this day. Today, I'm 35, and I have lived through so many life-transforming experiences on the internet (both beautiful and awful). If I had been born ten or fifteen years earlier, my life would have been radically different.