The big question was how much it’d cost: at that point in the United States at least you had companies like AOL or CompuServe which had been commercially viable for a decade or more but almost everything charged you back the minute and the phone company stranglehold kept speeds low even if you did spend a lot.

What made the internet and especially the early web interesting was that it had so much for free: you still needed a computer, modem, and ISP but once you had that you could do a ton of things without asking a monopolist for permission or paying Danegeld for the privilege of starting a business which made their business more profitable.