I was a young programmer during the dot com boom. Old school companies like sears and newspapers were scared of the internet. They would occasionally try something small and half hearted on the web but never really tried to figure it out.
Sears is a great example. 20 years before the web they had a functioning mail order service with stores and warehouse all over the US. They were very close to what a modern Amazon is, without the web presence or rapid delivery. If they were brave they could have been Amazon, selling online and delivering to there extensive store network.
Newspapers had a very busy classified section. That could have been moved online easily enough. But they wanted to charge for there classifieds, while eBay or Crageslist let you post for free, making money off of add revenue or a broker fee.
They also were very popular with local advertisers, and could have transitioned there newspapers online for free with the same local advertisers. Instead they tried to charge or resisted being online at all, leaving room for other services like yahoo (later Facebook and Google news) to fill in the news business.
Finally if they had been smart they could have made a news sharing service among the papers (nexus, etc) that could have forced Google news to pay a small fee every time they shared a story, providing a steady revenue service.
I see a time in the future where traditional papers fully die, and something new rises from the ashes. My guess is it will be a return to local news, but with a very small staff running the whole show online.
Intelligence is a collection of multiple things. Curiosity is a contributor, but far from an integral part.
Someone can be a brilliant mathematician, capable of computing complex equations that would stump most computers (metaphorically at least), but they may utterly lack creativity and curiosity. In any definition of intelligence we would consider them highly intelligent.
On the flip side someone may be completely filled with curiosity about the world, but lack the intelligence to read or write.
Technically that is a learned skill, this is why intelligence is really a fairly useless measure. What is intelligence? Memorizing lots of facts? Having loads of education? A built in understanding of the world that others lack (common sense)?
I think what really matters is that you find the thing in life where you fit, rather than worrying about how we measure up. I have known very intelligent people who were worthless human beings, and simple minded people who made the world more special every day. We focus too much on being smart, it is one of the least important attributes.