It depends on where you live. I lived in a rural area so the nearest local isp was far enough away that it cost. The cds and floppies that constantly came in the mail didn't charge though. There were a bunch of those free services and ad supported isps. I had dial up for a long time and watched the business model go from portal style sandbox like AOL to literal "all internet is free if you keep this ad open. " towards the end before I left for college.
I absolutely had them in mind. They were one of the better ones. Dial up is nostalgia trip was not on today's bingo card but I'm gladdened by the reminder.
Depends on region. In Australia, local calls (within the same state) were a flat $0.20 or $0.25, while interstate and mobile calls were billed by the minute.
I've heard that some Americans were billed for incoming calls too?? Crazy.
You would’ve had to pay for the call itself, but probably only if you had to make a long-distance call. I think by that time local numbers were pretty universally unlimited minutes, but long distance was 25¢/minute or more. I was too young to be buying phone service myself, then, but remember TV ads promoting 25¢ or 10¢ or something like that as a good deal. Around 2003 when I was first living on my own I used to buy prepaid calling cards to call home and those got me as low as 3¢/minute, and that was a bargain.