Article [media.guardian.co.uk]
[edited by: IanTurner at 8:44 am (utc) on Sep. 3, 2003]
Also fascinating in the present day and age that it is still the bricks and motar of a "direct sale" that gets more online connections, and the move to broadband which I would expect most people to go to from a dial up connection also is suggested in the article as still very influenced by face to face selling rather than online channels.
Perhaps this is in some measure due to the still expanding base of new home users in the UK market and when saturation is nearer buying habits will change.
I started connecting with compuserve, it was not preinstalled, some microsoft thing was I think, then I used freeserve and various other dial up providers inc IC24 etc etc anyone who was offering a deal .. I am sure I tried AOL for a while but to be truthful their CDs made better coffee coasters than anything else as I recall :-)
I did take a long time to close my compuserve account but when working as a travelling salesman it proved very valuable giving local connections in most countries I ever visited. More than many ISPs offer these days.
Anyhow interesting read.