Kinda like the American perception on European's techno culture.
Hint: when the clubs released their yearly compilation based on 3 or 4 CD's, you had one disc per genre: Techno, trance, house and progressive/sung. So in the end we listened to all of the EDM offer inbetween depending on the mood.
Also, as I said, dance megamix CD's in Spain could be found as early as late 80's. Ok, more like vinyls, but the concept stays.
I don't have much to add to this apart from to say I think you're both right to varying degrees.
But more importantly I'm enjoying this passionate discourse on HN about a genre of music that I care deeply about.
I think it's fair to say that dance music today wouldn't exist without the breadth of innovation that happened on both sides of "the pond" in recent decades - and to not be too European/US centric - elsewhere around the world too.
The point is that mass consumption of dance music was a huge thing in North America.
I mean it's funny. In the early 90s I went to visit my extended family in Germany. At that point I was already a major techno fan, but the funny thing is that when I went to Europe all my cousins, the music they listened to was mostly American R&B and hip-hop. Watching overdubbed episodes of Family Matters. Huge consumers of a side of North American culture that I did not. So to me the demographic situation is more complicated.
I think many Europeans on this thread might have a biased perception of what music consumption in the 90s in North America looked like based more on North American exports than on what was actually happening here. That and most people here are quite young.