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What the actual fuck.

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What the actual fuck.

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    pierostrada@sociale.networkundefined
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    francescotoniolo@livellosegreto.itundefined
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  • cybersecurity@poliverso.orgundefined

    The Rise and Fall of Free Dial Up Internet

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    cybersecurity@poliverso.orgundefined
    The Rise and Fall of Free Dial Up InternetIn the early days of the Internet, having a high-speed IP connection in your home or even a small business was, if not impossible, certainly a rarity. Connecting to a computer in those days required you to use your phone. Early modems used acoustic couplers, but by the time most people started trying to connect, modems that plugged into your phone jack were the norm.The problem was: whose computer did you call? There were commercial dial-up services like DIALOG that offered very expensive services, such as database searches via modem. That could be expensive. You had a fee for the phone. Then you might have a per-minute charge for the phone call, especially if the computer was in another city. Then you had to pay the service provider, which could be very expensive.Even before the consumer Internet, this wasn’t workable. Tymnet and Telenet were two services that had the answer. They maintained banks of modems practically everywhere. You dialed a local number, which was probably a “free” call included in your monthly bill, and then used a simple command to connect to a remote computer of your choice. There were other competitors, including CompuServe, which would become a major force in the fledgling consumer market.While some local internet service providers (ISPs) had their own modem banks, when you saw the rise of national ISPs, they were riding on one of several nationwide modem systems and paying by the minute for the privilege. Eventually, some ISPs reached the scale that made dedicated modem banks worthwhile. This made it easier to offer flat-rate pricing, and the presumed likelihood of everyone dialing in at once made it possible to oversubscribe any given number of modems.The CostOnce consumer services like CompuServe, The Source, and AOL started operations, the cost was less, but still not inexpensive. Some early services charged higher rates during business hours, for example. There was also the cost of a phone line, and if you didn’t want to tie up your home phone, you needed a second line dedicated to the modem. It all added up.By the late 1990s, a dial-up provider might cost you $25 a month or less, not counting your phone line. That’s about $60 in today’s money, just for reference. But the Internet was also booming as a place to sell advertising.Mad MenToday, a few large companies dominate online advertising. However, in 1990, the field was crowded, and everyone was rushing to find a way to effectively advertise to Internet users.Pick up your free CD at your local K-Mart.A company called FreeInet thought it had the answer. Give people free dial-up service and make them watch ads to generate revenue. NetZero bought the company in 1998 and helped it grow explosively. You could argue that FreeInet was the first successful free dial-up company.There were other companies in the space, too, such as Juno (which started out offering only e-mail) and BlueLight, which was run by retailer K-Mart, hoping that people would use their free Internet access to shop at K-Mart (spoiler: they didn’t). K-Mart actually cobranded with a free ISP called Spinway, and it was widely reported that people who used the service were not more likely to buy from K-Mart. Instead, they went where everyone went: chat rooms, music download sites, and, of course, adult sites.But the free market was mostly NetZero and Juno. NetZero even advertised on TV, as you can see below. NetZero even had a patent. They sued Juno over that patent, although the two companies would eventually merge.youtube.com/embed/5MOlWH1gbmY?…At least the ad wasn’t as suggestive as the one we remember from Juno.youtube.com/embed/BiZESkbH_G4?…Of course, this is all in the US. In the UK, where, at the time, there were no free local calls, Freeserve became a big player in free Internet access in conjunction with a major British electronics retailer.The ProductSome free providers showed ads in a window or otherwise inserted them into your browsing experience. They could gather demographic data on where and how you were browsing, and that was also a viable product. If nothing else, if you were at a car website, the service could show you ads for cars, for example, and either charge the advertiser more or, at least, expect a better result.There were other earlier schemes like Bigger.net, which promised lifetime access for $59. What could go wrong? There were limited tests of ad-supported access, and even a company that wanted to give you network access bundled with long-distance service. That lasted a month.Of course, there were hacks. You could move the ad window off-screen, for example. There were programs that would keep the connection alive since most would time out rather quickly.While Internet ad rates were artificially high, the concept made sense. At the time, people were trying to map traditional print ads’ costs to the Internet. Not only was this too high, but it also overlooks the fact that the Internet is perfect for paying on performance. Just showing an ad to 1,000 people (some of whom have it blocked, anyway) isn’t worth much. You want clicks or, even better, conversions.But the dot-com crash around 2000, along with a glut of online advertising venues, saw a collapse of the ad market. Even K-Mart started offering a limited amount of free service with a cheap plan if you needed more or wanted extra features. United Online, the fusion of NetZero and Juno, also switched to a “freemium” model.Enter BroadbandThe death knell of dial-up ISPs, including the free ones, came as broadband penetrated more and more households. Why tie up a phone line and dial up at 56K when you could have a connection “always on” and with speeds at least 20 times higher? Apparently, NetZero didn’t get the message, judging by the ad below.youtube.com/embed/JKD4pOsrLGw?…NetZero does still exist, or at least, they have a home page. We couldn’t get any of the links to work.However, these innovative free ISPs were trailblazers on ad-supported Internet services. They were also among the first to adopt freemium pricing. Even more, we suspect it drove more people towards the Internet. Everyone loves something for free, and while you might not want to pay AOL $22 a month just to see if you would like being online, you certainly would grab a free CD and get online.Dial-up still hangs on, though. Even AOL offered it until recently.hackaday.com/2026/03/18/the-ri…