I think I was still using Fidonet and Usenet even when I had 33.6K in mid 90s and also 56K, although at 56K by the end of 90s I already switched to internet paid per hour, but Usenet groups were for me really internet thing already, good predecessor of Reddit and various PHP forums.

Fidonet was practical - possible to download all groups/messages at once for lot of offline reading and responding saving lot of money for lot of content.