They were interested/excited by it, but didn't fully get it. The internet was just then replacing walled gardens like aol and prodigy.
Most people used dial-up for many years, and that sort of piggy-backed on the common-carrier status of the landline phone companies. So there was plenty of competition there. Cable internet providers were new around that time, and competing with cheap and good-enough dial-up and roughly-equivalent DSL (which could deliver service from a third party, somewhat like dial-up, e.g. earthlink). So the idea of only having one fast-enough option for internet in your town was novel.
Further, there were far fewer paid online services. So there wasn't an ecosystem to support partnership/promotions/schemes like today.
Most people used dial-up for many years, and that sort of piggy-backed on the common-carrier status of the landline phone companies. So there was plenty of competition there. Cable internet providers were new around that time, and competing with cheap and good-enough dial-up and roughly-equivalent DSL (which could deliver service from a third party, somewhat like dial-up, e.g. earthlink). So the idea of only having one fast-enough option for internet in your town was novel.
Further, there were far fewer paid online services. So there wasn't an ecosystem to support partnership/promotions/schemes like today.