This staggers me. My entire career can be traced back to fixing computer problems in much the way you describe. Is that not a very common experience? People tinker with things, sometimes those things are destroyed in the process. That's how people learn.
I feel like kid playing with old appliance (or PC) in the garage is a cliche hacker origin story. I know it is mine.
Maybe the lack of easy communication and scams made it easier? You could still install bonsai buddy and stuff, but there wasn't a chance to get ransomware...
Also people didn't depend that much on computers. How much would you really destroy at the time by wiping everything? How much damage would that do on a family computer these days?
I think a lot of people actually depend on the contents of their hard drive a lot less these days than, say, ten years ago, because so much is stored in the cloud - photos in particular.
I feel like kid playing with old appliance (or PC) in the garage is a cliche hacker origin story. I know it is mine.