[rootusrootus]

Still pretty prevalent at that time, definitely, but DSL was definitely a thing by the time 1999 rolled around. I even had pretty fast DSL for the time -- 640 kbps.

But otherwise totally agree with the critique. Modern connection speeds have enabled a huge amount of bloat. I grew up when 1200 baud modems were the latest rage, and patience when downloading was a hard requirement.

[NDlurker]

I lived in rural North Dakota and had dial up until 2005. It really sucked the last couple of years.

[aworks]

I lived on a suburban street a mile from the Stanford campus that didn't get broadband until 2003. I would go to the local copy center to rent an hour of computer time to edit my blog.

[gnabgib]

Ok.. so broadband in 1996, route-able (unique) IPv4 broadband in 1997 (177.1..), route-able satellite internet in Nigeria in 2002 (it sucked when it rained). Your Stanford proximity apparently didn't help.

[saghm]

I had a friend who had dial-up I think until at least 2007 because his house was apparently right on the border of our town and the next and for whatever reason all of the ISPs other than AOL considered his address outside their coverage. This was in a suburb within 10 miles of Boston.

[theandrewbailey]

I was raised by cheap boomers that would never pay more than the absolute minimum for anything, no matter how shitty the option, and most of my friends lived way out in the country. Paying $40/month for DSL or cable internet was off the table, because the library ran a free dialup ISP, so thats what we used even though their line was almost always busy. The cheap ass modem wouldn't reset the line correctly either, requiring someone to physically pull the phone cord out and back in the modem, otherwise the line wouldn't hang up, so redialling on a busy signal required physical intervention. (At some point, I recall my mom's friend/neighbor convincing her to pay $99/year for a dialup ISP that connected the first time.) I moved off dialup when I got a fast food job in 2005.