You'd be right if, 30 years ago, people were required to download proprietary software and run that on a locked-down computer (you don't get to have administrator-level access to it) in order to do simple things like pay a parking meter

Internet is (increasingly: was) an open system that you can connect to on your own terms. Browsers do your bidding, for the most part anyway and you can switch if you don't like one of them. However, you can't simply install an open source version of Google Play Services on your phone and if the Deutsche Bahn app doesn't work for you, there is no alternative that you can install to talk to their server and buy that train ticket (no equivalent to installing a different browser aka 'user agent')

30 years ago, the internet was a novelty, nothing more, and it remained so easily for another ten years after that. It wasn't until the widespread adoption of smartphones that permanent connectivity came to be taken for granted.

It was actually very easy to get by without any of it until quite recently, when legacy options for all kinds of things began being phased out.

Eh? 30 years ago would be 1994. Most people did not have internet in 1994.

But let's use 10 years: you absolutely could get by without internet 10 years ago. It would have been a bit of a hassle for a few things, but internet access wasn't needed for lots of every-day basic activities like parking a car, ordering in a restaurant, using tickets at a concert, etc.

Also: it was easy to use internet at a library, often at zero to no costs. You didn't need to have a personal device only used by you.

Absolutely. The internet stopped being something you accessed and became something you were connected to 24/7, and that you have a persistent, high-speed connection. That was a huge shift.