Printing, photography, radio, film, television, etc have all increased the availability and 'quality' of entertainment available at the same time as reducing the number of creators involved. (Obviously there is some debate possible around quality)
It also assumes that they were constrained to local creators.
It is possible that people simply did other activities that don't involve a creator. Another possibility is that most people consumed content from a small set of non-local creators, like authors with wide distribution.
Being a half-competent folk musician or good storyteller or being able to sketch pretty well used to be super valuable to your family and community. Not so much anymore. Expressions of those sorts of skills are more often tolerated than genuinely looked-forward-to, now. The need is gone.
People on this site complain about folks being consumers and not producers, not being creative—well, for a large swath of the arts, that's where it started. Recording and photography. Took it from something that was strongly socially encouraged & rewarded to something private. You can't fix that with "maker" movements—not in any major way.
Technology changed the social context and wiped out the external motivation & encouragement for a bunch of kinds of creative expression that were accessible to & achievable by the masses. AI is more of the same.