When the least expensive computer you could get was almost $5,000 and Internet access cost $5 per hour (both inflation adjusted), web users were mostly limited to academics and children of the 1%.
As the price of Internet access decreased so did the average socioeconomic status of users, and so building tools that made content easy to create and easy to consume suddenly became profitable. There simply is no alternate timeline where the web could have stayed the way it was, except perhaps one with a very abrupt ending to Moore's Law.
While your overall point is somewhat correct, your numbers are way off.
I was "surfing the net" in 1994 with a computer I built for around $700 ($1,204.59 today's price) and was using an ISP account that was $25 per month ($43.02 today).
I was not an academic or anywhere near the 1% at the time. But I agree with the point you're trying to make, as it did become more accessible for people at a poorer level. Also computers and the internet both became easier to use which contributed greatly to adoption as well.
Yep, same here. Local dial up services were born in 94 in every American mid sized town, and half my buddies (at 10 years old) were all online between 94 and 96. None of our families were wealthy, with basically lower to middle class blue collar parents.
As the price of Internet access decreased so did the average socioeconomic status of users, and so building tools that made content easy to create and easy to consume suddenly became profitable. There simply is no alternate timeline where the web could have stayed the way it was, except perhaps one with a very abrupt ending to Moore's Law.