> most of them were doing so to the accompaniment of a screeching dial up modem
Most of them were using it either at work or their university (often one in the same) and so had much faster connections. Dialup did exist, but it was still a small niche that was just starting to get someplace. Even when you had AOL, you typically were still in the walled garden not touching the internet itself.
in 95? nah. 93, 94, yes. though for nerds like us, different story
95 was already passing into in the "even my mom uses the Internet now" and regular ISPs popping up all over the place offering that as a dial-up service.
though we didn't have AOL up here in Canada, so I dunno
Most of them were using it either at work or their university (often one in the same) and so had much faster connections. Dialup did exist, but it was still a small niche that was just starting to get someplace. Even when you had AOL, you typically were still in the walled garden not touching the internet itself.