What was the internet like in 1996?

Webmail arrives, and your email address stops belonging to your internet provider. A typical home connection was 28.8 kbps, there were about 257,601 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $500.

How long did it take to download a film in 1996?

A 4 GB film at 28.8 kbps would have taken about 13 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.

How many websites were there in 1996?

About 257,601 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 1996

Webmail arrives, and your email address stops belonging to your internet provider.

257,601 hostnames · 28.8 kbps, with 33.6 becoming common.

Hotmail mattered because before it your email address was issued by whoever sold you your connection, and changing provider meant changing address and telling everyone. Free webmail broke that, and it is the reason email addresses outlived the companies that first issued them. ICQ introduced the idea that you could see who else was online right now, which turned out to be the more consequential invention. The web crossed a quarter of a million sites and directories stopped being able to keep up.

The numbers

Websites: 257,601 hostnames responding to HTTP
Typical connection: 28.8 kbps — 28.8 kbps, with 33.6 becoming common.
A gigabyte of storage cost: $500, in 1996 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 28.8 kbps
A 3 MB song	14 minutes
A 5 MB photo	24 minutes
A 700 MB CD image	2.3 days
A 4 GB film	13 days
A 50 GB game	169 days

What arrived in 1996

Hotmail, launched on 4 July for the symbolism
ICQ
Macromedia Flash
The Palm Pilot

Against the years around it

Year	Hostnames	Typical speed	$/GB of storage	A 4 GB film took
1995	23,500	28.8 kbps	$900	13 days
1996	257,601	28.8 kbps	$500	13 days
1998	2,410,067	56 kbps	$100	6.9 days

Between 1996 and 2020 the typical connection went from 28.8 kbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 3,472, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $500 to $0.020 — a factor of 25,000. The 4 GB film that took 13 days takes 6 minutes.

Common questions

What was the internet like in 1996?: Webmail arrives, and your email address stops belonging to your internet provider. A typical home connection was 28.8 kbps, there were about 257,601 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $500.
How long did it take to download a film in 1996?: A 4 GB film at 28.8 kbps would have taken about 13 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have.
How many websites were there in 1996?: About 257,601 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 1995 Amazon, eBay and JavaScript all arrive in the same year.
The internet in 1998 Google is founded, and searching stops being useless.
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