At first, I was going to say that things weren't quite the same, because if you didn't have anyone else in your social circle who was into music from overseas, nothing ever filtered its way down to you...but that's not really true, is it? It was still possible to find people to talk to or correspond with who were interested in such things (via magazines or elsewhere). And really, even though there are all kinds of sites and forums and various media feeds dedicated to sharing music (some much less social than others) it still comes down to people doing the sharing, doesn't it? =)