Sure. But it was a long period of time, and the number of pretty nice books produced during that time was relatively low, and the number of people they reached was also relatively low.

I'm no fan of content farms and their clickbait ad-spam, but there is still plenty of content written for love around if you step away from sources like Facebook and Google. However, much of it isn't edited or illustrated to professional standards, or covering subjects comprehensively, or accompanied by exercises, or based on years of demanding research and fieldwork. Commercial support can provide these benefits in a way that most people writing purely for fun as a hobby can't or won't.