computers were more novel and interesting back then and since no one else was really connected except extreme nerds there wasnt much to do but create actual well made programs. like the dude that created roller coaster tycoon in assembly language brute forcing an extremely autistic language, he never wouldve had the patience to do that if youtube existed.  now adays the internet and computers are such a distraction a good developer can spend like 10% of his time actually programming the other 90% fucking around.
Canada