@proxeus I first learned about Linux in 1999 in Ceuta. I was doing my military service there and a friend told me about how a dude named Linus had created an OS (almost) from scratch and made it free for everyone to use.
When I came back home, I got an Internet connection and started buying computer magazines and trying distros until I settled for Slackware a couple years later.
My point is, there were people like us back then, too, but, yeah, they were hard to find. Harder than now anyway.