Back in 1998 I was working for a Dutch ISP. It was very common back then to access the internet by 33k or 56k modem via your land line. Not only needed you to pay for each "tick", you also needed to pay the ISP a monthly subscription fee. That Dutch ISP was one of the first to offer "free" internet. As in, they dropped the subscription fee, but users still needed to pay for each "tick".
A very successful move, the amount of customers increased very, very fast, as did the amount of employees. For legal reasons there had to be a paper trail per subscription, so every 2 to 3 weeks one or more laser printers (professional business ones) needed to be replaced as the counter for its functional life exceeded the maximum. Content creation was important, the occasional sponsored deal was a nice bonus, but the real money was made from the kick-back fees, "generously" offered by telecom companies.
Those days (the first years) were long, but fun as heck. Unfortunately also very profitable. Investors came by and not all of them were of the friendly sort. Both co-founders were each sent packing with 4.000.000 euro, and still the investor got away with 20.000.000 euro more when the ISP was sold and moved to a different part of the country. Ah, those pre-bubble-popping days....
