One reason was the rise of the Internet. While there were a lot of neat things you could do with a personal computer, it wasn’t until you could connect easily to others that it really became fun and useful for most people.

I got my first computer, a Mac, in 1986. That was exciting for me, but I really felt that the revolution had happened when I got a modem in 1992 and connected first to a local BBS and then, a couple of years later, to the Internet itself.