The Demise Of Free Internet Access Programs

It might make you raise your eyebrows now, but cheap internet service was almost everybody's expectation in the early days of the net

. The business plan came from the model that had served television and radio for so long: advertising revenue would pay for the infrastructure, and web surfers would get access through a free internet access program. Not everyone began this way, but there were such programs all over the place, and many anticipated a day when all internet access would be free.

Not every free internet access program was equally ambitious. Some were very simple and offered little, serving only as teasers to get people to sign up for a paid service. For example, in 1996, Acer offered personal computers with "free internet," which consisted only of five hours of access per month, and then only for a year. Even with fewer websites available at that time, compared to today, users still barely had time to do more than check email and log off. They could, however, upgrade to unlimited online access for twenty dollars a month instead.

Free internet access offers seemed to fail for one reason or another; most of the time it was because the sponsor behind the program went belly-up. Remember that this all occurred during the halcyon days of the dot-com bubble, when venture capital was invested in internet companies in the belief that they would rake in spectacular profits as the internet exploded.

Many an internet service provider (ISP) leapt on the bandwagon, believing they could participate in this profit-making in some way. And some free services were simply bought up and shut down by ISPs who made money through paying customers rather than ad revenue.

Some discount internet services still exist, but don't offer very much. There were a couple of big reasons for the failure of the free internet access program as a concept. One was the bursting of the dot-com bubble itself, with hordes of internet companies collapsing. But another reason was that users simply didn't click on all those ads, thus giving advertisers the anticipated return on investment. This medium allowed them to ignore ads more thoroughly than they could on TV and radio. So the services finally had to be supported by paying customers, and free service almost completely vanished.

by: Sarah Duke

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