there were many ways to use the internet before browsers, applications talked with other applications, people joined BBSs, but you could argue that eventually, you’d like to access text or media in a repeatable manner, you’d like to be able to point to those resources in the least steps possible (some way of universally locate a resource…), those resources will end up being referenced by other resources and you’d eventually end up with the web.

the web is a side-effect of the internet