Voting Station

Prodigy Internet

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Internet Service Provider

The Resume

    (1984-November 14, 2001)
    Joint venture of Sears and IBM
    1999 Prices:
    $21.95 per month unlimited
    $198 per year unlimited
    Taken over by SBC and eventually SBC Yahoo! DSL

Why Prodigy Internet might be annoying:

    It censored almost anything questionable on the internet.
    It was either the leading or close to the leading ISP, but the censorship caused many subscribers to go elsewhere.
    Its contract forced subscribers to continue paying for a period of time even if they stop using the service.
    For a period, they read every single Email (both incoming and outgoing) and deleted those they found objectionable.
    Their graphical interface did not work for anyone who did not use windows.
    Every time you traveled the web, you had to agree that you understood that you may be offended by things that was out of the censors' control. This was called the 'offending material release'
    Although it offered most internet services of the day (Gopher, FTP, etc), it did not offer not Telnet.
    It was notorious for having the slowest Email and the worst Email client.
    To be highly compatible, they used the lowest common denominator video card. This made the colors, graphics and fonts look horrible.
    They completely ignored their DOS version when Microsoft introduced the first version of windows.
    They charged for everything, including how many Emails sent and the size of the Emails.
    Despite using 9600 baud, they ran much slower. If there were more than a few users on line, the system would grind down.
    They sent users shopping catalogs.

Why Prodigy Internet might not be annoying:

    It offered full internet service in 1995.
    It was the first major ISP to offer a graphical interface to the World Wide Web.
    Unlike the other commercial ISPs, they did not want you to stick on their intranet, they wanted you to explore the web.
    It was the only major ISP to maintain the full names of newsgroups.
    It featured internal newsgroups.
    Their web browser had a clean look.
    It was one of the first ISPs to make their software available for free.
    It was the first internet service to test being offered through cable modems - Cox High Speed Internet in San Diego (1993).

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 23 Votes: 56.52% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 15 Votes: 53.33% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 57 Votes: 63.16% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 24 Votes: 70.83% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 41 Votes: 78.05% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 85 Votes: 76.47% Annoying
    In 2006, Out of 89 Votes: 71.91% Annoying
    In 2005, Out of 41 Votes: 87.80% Annoying