I think today's self-proclaimed informed authority compares pretty well to yesterday's hobbyists, at least. Access to information today is just so much better than it used to be. I've got a passing interest in ancient history, and I own a number of books, but I'm hardly an expert. This morning I watched a YouTube video about the origins of cavalry and how long it took after the domestication of horses before anyone tried riding into battle on the backs of the horses. Chariots, on the other hand, were widely used much earlier. Just from that 20 minute video I learned a lot about an important part of history, and I know that if I wanted to I could spend a few hours, right from home, learning far more about it than I could have gotten from days or weeks of research in libraries when I was growing up.