Essentially, you paid for them to operate as your ISP, as well as paying for the content. Typically, you paid a flat fee for simple access, and then a usage fee for premium content. The Web spelled the end of that business model, but this was when everyone thought we could pay for million-dollar Web sites with targeted advertising, transaction fees, and magic pixel dust. Back to the business-model drawing boards. There are two big problems in charging for content.
Digital content is abstract bytes-there's nothing tangible.
Psychologically, people have trouble paying for intangible things. We want the permanence of something you can lay your hands on. The second big problem is that people don't want to go through the hassle to subscribe. Paying for content doesn't work well because the mechanisms for paying are cumbersome and immature. I think we'll soon see a time when you subscribe to a syndicate of Internet content.