It was... proprietary. The common "walled garden".
Everybody thought they could make a walled garden people would like better than the open internet. IBM had SNA, DEC had DECnet, Compuserve, WELL, ... None lamented.
There seems to be some nostalgia/lamentation of the glory days around WELL at least. It even technically still exists today.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL
I've always been curious about what lies behind the WELL's paywall nowadays. I fear the answer is likely not much, but searching through their archives could be fascinating.