[mseebach]

> How did we lose the freedom, the idea that everyone is an equal peer?

It's not lost in any real sense, you just have a romanticised picture of "the good old days". Look up the the term BOFH for a reality-check.

A dial-up ISP would be oversubscribed and thus effectively throttled, just like today. Downloading too much on your university account, especially in peak hour, would get you banned.

If you want total freedom, then as now, you are free to buy a dedicated line - and they are much, much cheaper today.

[dijit]

$1,000 for a leased line half a mile away last time I checked, that excludes set up fee.

[mseebach]

Exactly. In 1995:

The cost of access to the Internet via 56 kbit/s or 64 kbit/s leased lines varies enormously throughout the OECD area (Table 9). In countries such as Canada and Finland it is possible to get extremely inexpensive access to the Internet via 56 kbit/s and 64 kbit/s leased line connections. In fact, the price quoted for a 56 kbit/s leased line access to the Internet by the Helix Internet, an IAP in British Columbia, was less expensive than a listed 56 kbit/s leased line charge, over two kilometres, from the PTO used in OECD comparisons in the “Communications Outlook” to represent Canada.

The reason Helix can offer a less expensive service is because it purchases capacity from a reseller of BC-Tel’s network in British Columbia. If best practice pricing is defined as the lowest available prices then the suppliers in Canada (US$7 000) and Finland (US$6 000) appear to have set the current benchmarks. This finding is confirmed from within the Internet access industry by EUnet’s Wim Vik who says Finland has the least expensive prices in Europe because of the competitive provision of infrastructure.viii In fact very little separates the prices of these countries when it is considered the Canadian charge includes a router at the customer site. By way of contrast with the low prices found in Finland and Canada, ten OECD countries had a leased line basket price per annum higher than US$10 000, five a basket price higher that US$20 000 and a further three with charges higher than US$30 000. Overall the average price for leased line access to the Internet in countries with telecommunication infrastructure competition was 44 per cent less expensive than countries with monopoly provision of infrastructure.

http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2758588.pdf

Don't forget inflation. In 1995 your $1000 was worth only $652. What was considered "extremely cheap" in 1995 is 10x more expensive than what you seem to imply is prohibitively expensive today. And never mind the speed - your leased line is probably 100mbps, that's 1800x faster than 56kbps.

EDIT: Strictly speaking off-topic, but in the spirit of this thread: I typed "what did a leased line internet conneciton cost in 1995" into Google, it transparently fixed my spelling mistake and gave my this PDF as the first hit. This is truly an awesome time to be alive.