Been using the Portland GIS system to learn the ownership of all the properties around me to get clues on how redevelopment's gonna proceed.
As recently as the 2000s you had to go down to the courthouse and look this stuff up on paper!
Worth noting as well that as recently as the 2000s there'd be someone who knew which person at the courthouse to ask, and you'd hire that person to go ask. And there'd be someone at the courthouse, probably several someones, whose whole job was "be asked, and hand the asker the relevant paper".
Automation eats everything!
Oh, my dad was a heavily real estate-focused lawyer in a firm whose office was directly across from the courthouse like a 20 minute walk from our front door, I’d dogsbody for them over summers and I’m the type to appreciate mastery of backstage power structures, I was even then capable of doing it myself, though it was way too much bother to tool around with on a whim like now