Survival without the Internet?

It begs the question whether a long distance relationship in this day and age can survive. I know of two couples who survived with just letter writing and the occasional phone call (before the time of mobile phones), both in the UK and from abroad. As a society, especially Westerners, it’s hard not to be influenced and reliant on having an immediate and instant connection to the “outside world”.
Lots of people use Whatsapp to send free messages to each other, only having to pay, or mainly borrow, an Internet connection. This makes communication one hundred times easier when speaking to people in other countries and inevitably creates almost an addiction if this is the only way you can communicate on a regular basis and in a relatively cheap way.
Could someone in the USA, for example, persevere with their partner in Africa just by writing lettings and the occasional costly phone call? People often say that people in LDRs have it tough, but I would have to say that, as with everything, there is a scale to these things. For me, someone who lives in Scotland with a partner in London does not have the right to complain about how they never get to see their other half. If you live in the same country, arguably a developed one with good transport links, then the only thing from stopping you from seeing each other is you. Time plays it part and if you are working or studying then it will, of course, be a little more difficult. Money cannot be something which stops you either; there are always ways of making more money, especially with, you guessed it, the Internet!
If, however, you both live in different countries where you can only feasibly travel by plane, both needing a visa to visit either one, then these factors, in my view, allow you to take the moral high ground and be able to be jealous of others, yearn for your partner, and complain about being apart!