A major problem with Prodigy was that it didn't transition well to the Windows 3.1/95 ecosystem. Their custom graphics were a good plan for making use of a 240

A major problem with Prodigy was that it didn't transition well to the Windows 3.1/95 ecosystem. Their custom graphics were a good plan for making use of a 2400bps connection, but they screamed EGA. I suspect they had to develop a lot of GUI features from scratch. The result was that the Prodigy package looked like running a DOS package in a window, while AOL looked and felt like a native package. I also suspect it did them no benefits that you got an assigned and largely illegible email address by default-- you didn't see people clinging to their XXXX22X@prodigy.net addresses the way they kept their CutesyName69@aol.com ones.