What was the internet like in 1993?

Mosaic puts pictures on the same page as text, and the web stops being a document store. A typical home connection was 14.4 kbps, there were about 130 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $4,000.

How long did it take to download a film in 1993?

A 4 GB film at 14.4 kbps would have taken about 27 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.

How many websites were there in 1993?

About 130 hostnames responded to HTTP. That counts hostnames rather than distinct sites, which is why the figure occasionally falls between years without the web shrinking.

The internet in 1993

Mosaic puts pictures on the same page as text, and the web stops being a document store.

130 hostnames · A 14.4 kbps modem, the first that felt tolerable for graphics.

Mosaic was the browser that made the web look like something worth looking at, chiefly by displaying images inline rather than opening them in a separate window. There were about 130 websites in the world at the end of the year and a person could plausibly visit a meaningful fraction of them. This is the year the word "internet" started appearing in newspapers without an explanatory paragraph attached, and the year the Eternal September began when AOL connected its users to Usenet and the annual influx of new arrivals stopped being annual.

The numbers

Websites: 130 hostnames responding to HTTP
Typical connection: 14.4 kbps — A 14.4 kbps modem, the first that felt tolerable for graphics.
A gigabyte of storage cost: $4,000, in 1993 dollars

How long things took to download

Assuming the connection ran at its rated speed throughout, which it did not. Real dial-up throughput after protocol overhead was typically 10 to 20 per cent below the modem's rating.
What	At 14.4 kbps
A 3 MB song	28 minutes
A 5 MB photo	47 minutes
A 700 MB CD image	4.6 days
A 4 GB film	27 days
A 50 GB game	337 days

What arrived in 1993

NCSA Mosaic
The White House website
The first internet radio broadcast

Against the years around it

Year	Hostnames	Typical speed	$/GB of storage	A 4 GB film took
1991	1	9.6 kbps	$9,000	40 days
1993	130	14.4 kbps	$4,000	27 days
1994	2,738	14.4 kbps	$1,500	27 days

Between 1993 and 2020 the typical connection went from 14.4 kbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 6,944, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $4,000 to $0.020 — a factor of 200,000. The 4 GB film that took 27 days takes 6 minutes.

Common questions

What was the internet like in 1993?: Mosaic puts pictures on the same page as text, and the web stops being a document store. A typical home connection was 14.4 kbps, there were about 130 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $4,000.
How long did it take to download a film in 1993?: A 4 GB film at 14.4 kbps would have taken about 27 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.
How many websites were there in 1993?: About 130 hostnames responded to HTTP. That counts hostnames rather than distinct sites, which is why the figure occasionally falls between years without the web shrinking.

The internet in 1991 The web goes public, and there is exactly one website.
The internet in 1994 The first banner ad appears, and its click-through rate is 44 per cent.
Every year side by side Speed, storage cost and site count in one table
Convert data units Bits, bytes, and why a megabit is not a megabyte

Sources

Web Server Survey — Netcraft
ICT Facts and Figures / World Telecommunication Indicators — International Telecommunication Union
Historical cost of computer memory and storage — Compiled from contemporaneous retail advertising and manufacturer price lists

How these figures are compiled and checked