That's an awfully pessimistic view of things. I've studied some fairly obscure corners of computer science and the Internet has allowed me to get instant access

That's an awfully pessimistic view of things. I've studied some fairly obscure corners of computer science and the Internet has allowed me to get instant access to mountains of scientific papers, a huge variety of books (many of which are out of circulation), incredibly high-quality courses on maths, DSP, algorithms and the like. Previously I would have had no way of accessing any of that information unless I happened to be at the right university with the right department, or in some high-level research institute.