What software businesses worked in the early Internet? Can they work again?

My country is going through a lot of changes right now, and the use of the internet and smartphones is growing very quickly. I’m trying to figure out how I can take advantage of this trend to make money, especially in the software space. Many existing solutions are quite expensive relative to local purchasing power, so I think there may be room for simpler, more affordable, but still useful hardware/software. For example, I’ve been wondering whether something like a local hosting company could make sense. I know the usual advice is to find problems and fix them, but I’d argue that reinventing the wheel is often harder than adapting ideas that have already been proven to work elsewhere. With that in mind, I’m really interested in lesser-known insights, stories, or anecdotes from the late 1990s, when the internet first became mainstream in developed countries. As a starting point, I can code and I have some capital to help kick-start a business.