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Prodigy (online service)
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==Price increases== Two of Prodigy's most popular services were its message boards and email. Because Prodigy's business model depended on rapidly growing advertising and online shopping revenue, email was initially developed primarily to aid shopping. However, it later found much greater usage as a means of general communication between users. The popularity of Prodigy's message boards caused users to remain connected to the service far longer than had been projected. This resulted in escalating expenses that adversely affected the service's cash flow and profitability. To control costs and raise revenue, in January 1991, Prodigy modified its basic subscriber plans by allowing only 30 free email messages each month, while charging 25 cents for each additional email message, a policy that was later rescinded. In the summer of 1993, it began charging hourly rates for several of its most popular features, including its most popular feature, the message boards. This policy was later rescinded after tens of thousands of members left the service. The price increases prompted an increase of "underground IDs" by which multiple users would share a single account and manipulate the email service to act as private bulletin boards. This was accomplished by sending emails to intentionally invalid addresses containing the name of the intended recipients. The service would return the emails, which were not billed, and users of the shared account would find the returned messages there. Replies were sent by entering the name of the first sender as the addressee, which would again trigger a return of the message. Prodigy was slow to adopt features that made its rival [[AOL]] appealing, such as anonymous [[User (computing)|handles]] and real-time [[Online chat|chat]]. Eventually, the emergence of the [[Internet]] and the [[World Wide Web]] threatened to leave Prodigy behind.
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