For many of us, it was more like the "Information Country Road" with the speeds we had. I don't think I had ADSL access until 2006/2007 sometime, then it actually felt like a super highway. But before that, "paddling the Internet" would have been more accurate.
Of course, we weren't on there for the books, but for the people.
Even at 1200 baud you could be more or less instantly transported to university systems all across the country.
The meme "surf the internet" gained wide currency pretty much immediately.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Surf+the+Inter...
And a 1994 book title used it: https://www.amazon.com/Surf-Internet-Bundle-Neil-Randall/dp/...
— Chip Douglas, The Cable Guy
Well, sadly, that very example is impossible in practical terms.
Of course the assumption being that the author of the quote was somewhere far away from Vietnam.
Most of the issue is with jitter, not latency. If you had a dedicated point-to-point link to your friend in Vietnam you could play a flawless game of Mortal Kombat for sure!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Programme
[1] https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/a-brave-new...
I mean, who talks like that?
(I did have one especially goofy friend once confide in me that he had been "surfing the nets")
"I must remember to get my information superhighway connected as soon as I move into my new apartment!"
"Hey is your information superhighway dropping out? Mine is."
"Did you hear Jenna had her pictures leaked on the information superhighway?"
But yeah, never used by a real world person.