This. People forget how much more stuff was niche or industrial/b2b only before ecommerce came along.

Industrial businesses were less rigid about avoiding retail sales than today but it was still way more hassle and generally "the dark ages" comparatively.

Agreed. It's a whole lot easier to engage in esoteric hobbies these days, because there just has to be a single warehouse somewhere, maybe even in another country, willing to sell you what you need.

Periodically I watch YouTube videos made by a historian of clothing. She makes a lot of clothing for research and display, and she had an episode on where to purchase linen and what to look for to make sure you don't get a sub-par product. When I was growing up you just wouldn't have been able do something like that unless you were living somewhere like Paris or Milan.

Not if you live in the EU. If I want to buy a 50 cent transistor on Aliexpress I now have to pay 5€ in import fees. If I buy it from Digikey in the US it's 10€ shipping, but at least the shipping stays the same when I buy 100 components at once. You can't get that stuff locally because the EU is a consumer shithole that produces almost nothing of value and does everything to make it even more difficult for people to invent or setup businesses or do anything at all that isn't football or paying taxes.