The whole market was much smaller. So maybe much less competition, but also much less market when only hobyists had computers at home and no one had smartphones

The whole market was much smaller. So maybe much less competition, but also much less market when only hobyists had computers at home and no one had smartphones. The only "golden age" I can think of was the internet bubble when investors were crazy and threw money on anything that had anything to do with internet. Some kids made really good money "programming" HTML.