I always see that the data used in ML field are not being praised enough. I don't see enough people realising it was the large collection of data / curated info

I always see that the data used in ML field are not being praised enough. I don't see enough people realising it was the large collection of data / curated information that enabled the advancement (may it be that the ML methods were heavily and manually tweaked to accomplish certain tasks). It simplify wasn't possible before the age of internet.