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Internet access was arguably more equal between rural and urban areas in the late 90s, early 2000s. Few had broadband and dial up was mostly the same regardless

Internet access was arguably more equal between rural and urban areas in the late 90s, early 2000s. Few had broadband and dial up was mostly the same regardless where you were living. Most PCs had a CD-ROM drive in 2000. You didn't need good internet to go to a store to pick up a copy of StarCraft, Diablo, Half-Life, Age of Empires, Quake III etc. but you did need a CD-ROM drive and decent PC. I grew up in a rural area too. Most of my friends had games like StarCraft or Diablo too

giobox 4y ago
The idea CD-ROM wasn't ubiquitous in the PC industry and consumer desktops at large in 2001 is just laughable, I'm amazed this is still being debated. Do some people just choose not to remember the explosion in the "multimedia" industry in the 90s? If you really want to put this to bed, just look at any vintage PC magazine from 97 onwards archived on archive.org, and pay attention to the adverts, which are a literal snapshot of what people could buy at that time. Good luck finding a consumer desktop PC at any price from the Windows 98 era onwards without a CD-ROM. In 1998, most PC magazines even had demo CD-ROMs stuck to the cover, such was the wide penetration of CD-ROM drives. > https://archive.org/details/computermagazines https://archive.org/details/computermagazines