Pre-Internet we were information-bound, now we are attention-bound.

From that observation you can deduce a number of consequences.

Information (software, encyclopaedias) was expensive. Your intellectual life depended much more than now on where you grew up (as opposed to, say, your character), see for example Lisp in US vs Prolog in Europe. It was harder to be distracted but also easier to find yourself reinventing the wheel.

Instead of reading blog posts about time management and the seven most important traits of whatever, you had mildly interesting newsletters, documentation to photocopy, and complaints about the choice of books in the local library. Back then you were more concerned about gathering resources, now you are more preoccupied by where to put your attention and efforts. So, in that sense, we have all followed the same trajectory as Bill Gates.