this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
172 points (98.3% liked)
Technology
59219 readers
3314 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'd argue it had reached its prime. Websites were just websites then, not data harvesting machines.
Plenty of people had broadband, I was one of the first to get it in 1998. A whole 512Kbit.
In 1999, I had a 25mbps asymmetrical static IP for $25/month from a new technology called a cable modem. It rocked. I could download faster than the local school/college that was still using T1 lines.
They clamped down hard on upload speed when torrents became popular. If I recall, my IP was 72.45.27.220 back then. I ran websites, file servers, streamed my music library, and used QuickTime broadcaster to stream TV/VHS so I could watch videos while in class.
No cable modems where I lived. I worked for an ISP and we'd order fire alarm circuits then just put SDSL routers on them instead. Up to 2Mbit speeds depending on how far from the exchange you lived, I was only able to get 512Kbit reliably. We were selling them to customers at a nice markup for a profit.
British Telecom wised up to it a few years later when they started marketing ADSL themselves and started filtering our traffic, but for a few years it was a super cheap way to get broadband if you had the know how.