> 10 ISPs worth of free trials and shortcuts on your Windows 95 desktop. AOL, MSN, Compuserve, Prodigy, AT&T, NetCom, UUNet, NetZero, EarthLink, MindSpring, countless local and regional providers
It sucked having them installed by default on your desktop, but I'd argue the availability of numerous ISPs was a good thing that we have lost. Today is far worse, where at most two of Comcast, Charter, Cox, AT&T, and Verizon are the only options for most of the US population.
Sort of, but they were all dial-up providers and it ended up being a race to the bottom, which seemed to be $9.95 a month, full of busy signals, then they all merged.
Seeing something similar today, we have the phone company and cable company, and now we've got a third option of fiber, the same lines being re-sold by 4 different companies, I'm sure in few years we'll be down to two companies.