Deal hunting before the internet was a whole different game

I remember in 1998 driving to three different Circuit City stores in Phoenix to price match a VCR I saw in the Sunday paper, just hoping they'd honor it before the manager went on lunch break. Now I sit on my couch and have a price tracker alert me if something drops below my target by a single cent, no gas money spent at all. The wild part is back then a misprint in the ad was basically a rumor you had to chase, but now a bug on some site can spread to a thousand people in ten minutes and get canceled before I even add to cart. Does anyone else feel like the chase was more fun when you had to earn the deal, or am I just romanticizing the old days of hunting through circulars?