Whatever got us the Internet was worth it. To generalize, it's fine to have a variety of components, as long as the interface between them is roughly standardized, and the innovation can come in the components. That we can have a Playstation and an iPhone use the same network is a good thing, and they can do whatever they want with the rest of the stack.
A computer pre-internet felt a lot more like an island. I had an Amiga, but I wasn't aware of 90% of the stuff that was out there, and could barely afford to buy a compiler.
Not always islands, if you had a modem and a phone line. Pre-Internet were increasingly numerous BBS systems, from big one’s like AOL and CompuServ to medium sized one’s like GEnie and many tiny independents. Instead of remembering URLs you had lists of phone numbers (the smaller one’s requiring long distance calls when those were still expensive) for your little modems to dial. My Atari ST (a contemporary of the Amiga) was online a lot already during those days. I actually connected to the Internet via CompuServ for quite a while before the local phone company began to offer dial-up Internet service. And pirated as well as free software were widely available already back then.
I didn't have a modem for the Amiga for most of the time I owned it (starting in about 1985). I did eventually get one but had trouble getting access to the phone. The BBS sites I did connect to were often full, and many required you to upload something in order to download something. Starting in about 1991 I got access to the Internet at school, and spent most of the time in the lab there, leaving my Amiga behind when I left for college.
A computer pre-internet felt a lot more like an island. I had an Amiga, but I wasn't aware of 90% of the stuff that was out there, and could barely afford to buy a compiler.