The web was invented in 1989, so mostly it didn't. Before that there were BBSes that you could dial into. From there, you could chat with other users who happened to be logged onto the same server or download text documents and whatnot that others had uploaded.
Well, you were siloed to whatever _local_ BBSs existed and you could dial without paying a fortune for long distance calls. If you lived anywhere outside select urban centers then you were out of luck. So yeah... let's count our blessings.
