In my country we were paying per minute of access. I think it came to $10 per hour? That was about 2x what it's worth today. Cheaper off-peak rates.

So you'd connect, download all your emails and Usenet groups, then disconnect ASAP.

Then some company started offering unlimited free access but they injected popup ads into web pages whenever they felt like it, which was often, and browsers had no popup blocking functionality.