I don't think it was ridiculous, except perhaps for the name, but non-tech people back then didn't even really know what the Internet was. It probably didn't se

I don't think it was ridiculous, except perhaps for the name, but non-tech people back then didn't even really know what the Internet was. It probably didn't seem far-fetched, since most (all?) products were basically tangible things that could fit into a box, and it probably bridged the gap. In that box was a browser and list of dial-up POPs and designed to compete with AOL, which offered AOL's version of the Internet and was peppering the country with free floppies (and later CD-ROM's). Other than AOL, most people in the country could only do dial-up to gain access to the World Wide Web (it sounds so quaint when you write it out now!). Juno did this even better -- for free, with ads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Online_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Online_Services Shockingly, they're still doing it today! I had no idea there was a market for free dial-up internet in 2021! That is so cool. https://www.juno.com/free https://www.juno.com/free A lucky few within a certain distance from their CLEC's CO could get DSL or would spring $800/mo (or a lot more!) for a 1.5Megabit/s T1. I think it was around the late 90's that Time Warner and a few other cable companies started testing out high-speed cable. So, to me, the Internet-In-A-Box product was a cool thing that didn't last that long because most people migrated from dial-up to broadband as quickly as they were able. I wonder, though, why it died so quickly while Juno is still around 20-something years later! Freemium is a better business model?