On the first look the year 1992 looks similar to all the other years in computer history. But something was new. It seems that with this year a major milestone was reached and that 1992 was the start to the internet period.
To understand the breakthrough in detail we have to analyze the computer technology before this date. Computers were available an different layers: gaming konsoles (NES), homecomputer (Amiga 500), office PC (Intel AT), workstation (SUN), mainframes (IBM). The interesting situation was, that none of these computer fulfilled the requirements. Bascially spoken, the PC before the year 1992 was not powerful enough, and more powerful workstations like the NEXT computer were too expensive. Because of these reasons, the computer was a niche product and was used seldom. The best sign were perhaps the low quality monitors. Monitors before the year 1992 were typically black / white, and it wasn't possible to use them for reading longer text. Even advanced mainframe computers from this period weren't able to display simple graphics. And a soundcard wasn't invented yet.
So what sort of application were possible before the year 1992? Right, no one. Advanced media during that time were the printed book, printed magazine, the radio, television or the music CD. But computers were running with a low priority.
Around the year 1992 the situation has changed drastically. Overnight many progress was made. The hardware had become cheap, the performance of the computer was better and it was possible to do something with a computer. For example, typing in a text. From the perspective of the moores law, the year 1992 wasn't very different to other years. Similar to the years before, the expected improvement for computer hardware had become possible. The new thing was the provided technology was able to fufill the expectations of the users. Even if the PC was available before the year 1992 and even computer networks were used in the 1980s, after the year 1992 everything have become new and shiny.