> Makes me wonder if people spoke this way about “using computers” or “using the internet” in the olden days.

Older person here: they absolutely did, all over the place in the early 90s. I remember people decrying projects that moved them to computers everywhere I went. Doctors offices, auto mechanics, etc.

Then later, people did the same thing about the Internet (was written with a single word capital I by 2000, having been previously written as two separate words.)

https://i.imgur.com/vApWP6l.png

And not all of those people were wrong.