Free unlimited internet access

A few years ago, before the mighty DotComs had crashed ferociously to the ground, there were a number of brave (stupid?) companies who wished to supply the world with free unlimited internet access. Alas, fortunes have been unkind to these companies, and as of this writing, no true free unlimited internet access providers remain.

What went wrong with the free provider business model?

Really, everything was wrong. In the ISP business, customers expect a high degree of customer and technical support, and expect very little downtime. For a company to allow unlimited dialup connections and to charge no money for them, opened the company up to great abuse and allowed no margins for support. People who got no help, switched over to low cost providers who could walk them through connections and hold their hands for emails setup. With rising costs, and lower revenues from advertising, companies like NetZero and Juno were forced to team up and throw in the towel on their free internet business.