For companies I think you're right; but a price tag of a few thousand dollars was a strong deterrent for students or hobbyists/learners to get into doing those development. I think the web was great for learners in the 90s/00s because no special tools were necessary. All you needed was Notepad and a browser. If you did some CGI/Perl or PHP you may also need a $5-$20/mo web host account, that's about it.