Ah, but.
Consider the alternative.
I wanted a towbar on my Nissan Note. So I bought a kit online, and found an Irish bloke bolting the self-same one to his car on youtube, step-by-step, somewhere in the depths of the Emerald Isle. Saved me £££s.
The internet. It's saved me hunnuds. Bear with me here...
My tumble drier broke, and I discovered a dealer (The Element Man, great name, awesome service) selling items for such things. Fitted and working in half an hour, the day after being ordered.
Ditto the oven, a few months later.
Shortly after, my washing machine broke, and my wife pointed put that the LEDs were flashing in a particular way. "Maybe", she said, "it's trying to tell us something?"
I laughed, like you would, but we googled it. "My wax-based temperature sensor is goosed."
So I bought a new sensor, online. £12, arrived the day after, and it took two minutes to fit (a minute and a half of which was spent finding and pulling out the right screwdriver). The washing machine has since done another two years' work.
What I can't recall is how, back in the days pre-internet (the late eighties) I used to go to BBC Outside Broadcasts to work, and somehow booked accommodation and found the site without GPS and Google. It's a mystery (the kids of today would not understand...)
This internet thing isn't all bad.
Andy