By 1996 it was charging $19.95 a month for twenty hours, and then $2.95 an hour after that. But it faced price competition from both Microsoft and other "bare-bones" Internet services that were offering "all you can eat" for $19.95 a month or even less. At the end of 1996, AOL switched to unlimited time for $19.95. That brought in millions of new users but also crashes, busy signals, and an investigation by New York State's attorney general accusing AOL of offering a service it could not provide. Its revenue growth trimmed, AOL began a mildly desperate search for alternatives.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 725