Definitely. I remember at the time hoping that Mosaic (and then Netscape) would extend out into the authoring space, but instead all we got was crap like Frontp

Definitely. I remember at the time hoping that Mosaic (and then Netscape) would extend out into the authoring space, but instead all we got was crap like Frontpage. The early web just became magazines / flyers online. And in that respect it was far behind some other modalities we had at the time (thinking of social MUDs/authoring-environments like LambdaMOO, etc. in particular which were far more synchronous and interactive). But that wasn't really the intent. It was supposed to be more about knowledge sharing and editing, with a collaborative component. But in all these things, it really shows the way that era of the Internet was still very much about academia and its methods and concerns.