When I started university in 1993, no one in my residence had email and of course many had computers but not everyone had a computer. Many still used a common computer in the residence library to type up their paper. They were using a computer like a typewriter.
As a Comp Sci student, I had access to the Comp Sci lab or CDF as we called it at U of T (Computer Disciplines Facility). One day someone showed me how to use Mosaic. I used it for about 2 months until someone else said to me one day, 'My god, what are you doing? Use Netscape'.
I am proud to say that there are a few people who I showed the 'Web' to for the first time. But slowly more and more of my friends at other universities started to get email access. We had left high school a close group to go to different universities and it meant alot to us to email. Those first emails though read more like letters than the beau-mots one-liners that go back and forth today (New band - check it out 'Band of Horses'. Lee's Palace June 13th.).
The Scarb!
But then that was dial-up. When we got our broadband connection at home, well that was a day to remember. It was courtesy of my generous former employer who had developed a 1MG modem and wanted to encourage adoption by giving it away to employees at no cost. When the T. got it up and running, what was the first app, we used? Napster. It was mid-2000.
If you look around the world, you will see cable and DSL packages for up to 10 MG. If you are in the UK, Spain or Brazil, you may be getting broadband for the first time. The fact that these people are getting broadband now is changing their perception of the web. Now its the norm to get TV clips via the web. I believe that this shift in Internet usage has fundamentally changed people's expectation of what is on the web and how they use the web.