Adding my personal experience from the nineties in Berne in Switzerland: Compared to Ethernet the cables were thicker, more cumbersome to bend and you had two of them, and they were chained to neighbor computers. That was long ago and I was then not an admin, only a user. When my office relocated they also switched to Ethernet. Everybody seemed to be relieved and happy about Ethernet. Just a personal anecdote.
When we relocated, the new building already had the ethernet cables we know today. I was very impressed by the cabinets with the switches. The floors had little covers with power and ethernet. That was in the 90s.
