I had gotten to the top of Compuserve's F3 Ladder - 1994. At that time, it was H2H via 9600 baud modems over toll lines.
The conventional wisdom was getting to the top took a phone bill of about $500 USD/month!!! I managed to do it on $200 USD/month. Mainly, I picked up a lot of extra flight hours by teaching students as long as they paid the toll calls. I had students as far East as Puerto Rico, El Caribe and as far West as Vancouver, Canada.
The Internet was truly a revolution for MP gaming! By 2000, I was flying EAW H2H and teaching combat with players from all around the globe for the staggering sum of around $35 USD/month on broadband.
In 1994, maybe I was getting at best 8 hours/week of H2H flight time. In 2000, I was regularly averaging about 3-4hrs/day.
Now, I've retired my wings to take life at a much slower pace: Dive to 450 ft, right hard rudder, all ahead flank, rig for depth charges!