AOL came along and introduced flat rate pricing which effectively changed the game and forced Compuserve to go into the same pricing model.
You're misremembering. AOL also charged by the minute/hour, and more for 9600 baud modems. They certainly didn't just "come along" with flat rate pricing. I paid hourly rates to AOL for a few years.
I the beginning you are right. I remember the big move to 56K modemns, LOL. I was excited about it.
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