30 years ago the internet was a joke and it was not obvious to most it would be big. Feel free to suggest ideas in pockets of crypto, robotics, and biology. Even very obvious things we have in web tech are not in these areas.
It wasn’t a joke - the value of networks was long proven, and computer prices and capabilities were improving rapidly so mainstream ownership was becoming common.
The big question was how much it’d cost: at that point in the United States at least you had companies like AOL or CompuServe which had been commercially viable for a decade or more but almost everything charged you back the minute and the phone company stranglehold kept speeds low even if you did spend a lot.
What made the internet and especially the early web interesting was that it had so much for free: you still needed a computer, modem, and ISP but once you had that you could do a ton of things without asking a monopolist for permission or paying Danegeld for the privilege of starting a business which made their business more profitable.
