@mhoye @linc Not OP, could have been. But people tinkered and built stuff with computers before they were networked or online communities existed.

For some people, a computer is/was a jumped up word processor with email. If you aren’t writing papers or managing correspondence, you go off and hang out with friends or practice your hobby(ies) - sport, model UN, woodworking, model railroads, music. Whatevs. If you’re spending an evening building packages, that’s an evening not doing the thing you’re trying to achieve. The computer is obstructing you rather than enabling.

There was a time when computers involved IRL clubs and gatherings. Still can with Maker Spaces, but computer clubs and user groups don’t really exist as such any more - certainly not the way they did in the 1970s or 80s.