BlueLight Internet was basically Kmart’s answer to dial-up in the late ‘90s, back when everyone was fighting to get online without blowing the budget. Launched in December 1999, it started as a free ISP bundled with Kmart’s BlueLight.com shopping portal—think AOL but with a big-box twist. The idea was simple: free internet to keep you shopping with them. Users downloaded the BlueLight software, logged in through the classic 56k modem, and got about 12 free hours a month before hitting paid tiers. By mid-2000, they added premium plans and eventually rolled into United Online, the same folks behind NetZero and Juno. It peaked in the early 2000s, then faded as broadband killed dial-up. If you remember those connection tones and the little BlueLight logo spinning while you waited, you were there for peak dot-com chaos.