Time = Money
This equation is the kernel of many jokes. Yet, if we take it to heart, then we can explain a big part of why the Internet revolutionized our lives.
A vast amount of the the time = money, discourse revolves around individuals and how they use their time. Examples of how to wake up earlier, do exercise, work longer hours, more efficient hours. All in the pursuit of maximizing the output of the time we invest at work.
Yet, if think of the standard entrepreneurial problem: How can I use my brain to give as many people a product with more value to them than it cost th to acquire from me?
Then valuable solutions are the ones that save us time so that we can reinvest this time in our work. Solutions like Microsoft Word that avoid the need for dictation as a writing and rewriting can be done by oneself and not a person paid for that task alone. Ideas such as an universal search engine that puts at our fingertips the possibility of accessing all of human knowledge and it's current trends. These two by themselves explain why Microsoft, Google, and Apple grew so immense, and why Bill Gates's biggest problem at the moment is learning how to get rid of his money in way that lets him sleep at night.
Ideas such as shopping mall where one can get what one wants in a day thus avoiding needing to go out and interacting with decomposing biological systems. Ideas such as lending your infrastructure to other people who want to build one-step shops for movie watching, taxi hauling, vacation rental... These two ideas provide Jeff Bezos the chance to pay for the creation of a Space Tourism startup, as a side project of his daily routine as the richest man alive.
Joking aside, the four ideas presented above saved humanity trillions of hours during the past thirty years. We were and still are willing to pay for Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's products in exchange for the services they provide. Their services save humanity time and time seems to be closely collinear to money.