Prodigy was truly awful. As I recall, it attempted to appeal to non-techies with a graphical interface at a time when computers really weren't fast enough and color graphics sucked (CGA). Just terrible in comparison to commercial services like CIS as well as BBSs (both paid and free).

Weird, because I was on Prodigy and it worked beautifully for me; and it's the only reason I'll even give online gaming a marginal glance nowadays.