[fallous]

In the 90s it had that, mostly because there was a negative feedback mechanism for poorly thought-out questions. If you posted a question on usenet or IRC that obviously demonstrated you hadn't bothered to invest any effort into reading or trying to solve the problem yourself first, you were flamed.

Over time, as a more general populace joined the Internet, the ethos changed to act more as a support system rather than the more demanding expectations of the past. Presumably that was due to a recognition that newbs did not have the exposure to computing or tech that the prior generations of users had and so the intent was to be more educative so that these new users could learn to solve things for themselves. Alas, that optimism was misplaced as the majority of people are not interested in thinking for themselves but instead just looking to follow a checklist with no understanding.