In the 90s local calls and thus Internet was free in America, where in the U.K. it cost upto £5 an hour (in today’s money) to be online.

Yep. France was similar to the UK. I spent years online between 10pm and 6am to use our dialup at the off-hours cost (which wasn't free, but significantly cheaper).

Not the good old days of spending money to browse the internet at 28.8kbps.