The Cuecat: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat
Came at a time when there weren’t barcodes everywhere and QR codes didn’t exist yet. Companies had to publish Cuecat specific barcodes, it was much easier to just type in the URL by the time you figured out you could use it at all.
Being able to use TikTok on your phone doesn’t make you tach savvy. They don’t know anything about how it all works. It’s a false dichotomy.