Prodigy pushed ideas that wouldn't come to real fruition until at least a decade later. From its beginnings in 1989, it saw itself reselling the attention directed to computer screens. “IBM and Sears executives envisioned a new advertising medium,” wrote Wired in 1993, “that would assemble audiences for marketers much as niche TV channels do.” It believed that if its content was good enough and the service were cheap enough to attract a crowd, it would eventually attract enough eyeballs to resell for profit. “Visionaries at IBM and Sears figured they could sell advertising on every screen and tap a potential revenue stream far larger than the sum of the hourly fees charged by existing online services.” Like the penny press, Prodigy sought its mass audience by offering a low price—$9.95 a month, a money-loser unless advertising paid off. Unfortunately, unlike the New York Sun, revenue didn't meet expenses, and by the early 1990s Prodigy had lost hundreds of millions.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 703