AOL did, and the others that were easy (compuserve etc) provided their own limited interface to a curated Internet.
Most providers (at least here in the UK) that provided actual tcpip did so using slip and a login screen. Which generally needed a script to login and then chain on slip to connect it to the local stack.
It wasn't until 1998 or 1999 there was widespread use of ppp and the windows 98 dial up networking could get you straight in. Then in the UK we had services like freeserve which provided simple ways to connect.
On public WiFi I just vpn into my home network. The issue with public WiFi is that it can be sniffed by anyone in range since there is generally no encryption.
Although pretty much everything we do is over tls these days, and DoH helps protect against even dns sniffing. There's still at least some risk to working in the clear over a public WiFi network. At least in information gathering, what bank you use, etc.
But, there's no real benefit in using a paid vpn over one you own unless you're downloading illegal content, want to watch another Netflix region, or are in a country with heavy Internet monitoring/filtering.