I see it time and time again. "Microsoft was the first to charge for online play" and it goes on until somebody blames them for both. Nintendo and Sony's paid online services. The latest was in the comments section of the recent Jim Sterling video. 

Meanwhile Sega gets a free pass like 😙🎶.

I'm old. I remember Seganet. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/seganet-launches/1100-2625699/

I argued that Sega charged $20 a month almost twenty years ago! But I was wrong. It was a whopping $21.95 a month. Sooo next time you're blaming Microsoft for all of the woes of the world, let's put the blame where it should be. ON SEGA!

*

Yes, I'm still mad about the "Genesis does what Nintendo Don't" campaign.

Dreamcast had free online play.

Online should be free, MS saw a way to make money and jumped on it. The rest of the industry followed suit. MS did start it, thus they receive most of the blame.

Seganet was an ISP, not just a pass to play online. It's also not going to receive the blame because it was very short-lived.

Microsoft get the blame because they popularised the practice with Xbox Live. Microsoft charged for online for a whole 11 years while no other platform holders did.

Don't blame MS, blame the millions of XBox gamers that had no problem paying twice to use their own internet. MS tried the same on PC, PC gamers didn't fall for it and you still don't need live gold to play xbox games online on pc. Gamers only have themselves to blame.

Yeah, I tend to agree. I blame Xbox gamers for noramizling such an absurd practice.

"Why does everyone blame Microsoft for paid online subscriptions?"

They made it mainstream..... no one really used the sega thingy.

So basically OP is wrong in his arguement.
Also doubt everyone is blameing Microsoft for all the woes of the world.

Just one minor thingy, that effects console gamers today.
The better question is Why are you trying to defende Microsoft from something thats clearly their fault? Its not possible to counter it.

It would be better if your comeing out to defende Microsoft that you just go "well today everyone does it so?"

Well yes it's not the same thing as the paid online we have to day. Though if Seganet was mandatory to play dreamcast online I'd argue it's much much worse than what we have now. However it's difficult to find out if you HAD to have Seganet as your ISP to play online, or if you could connect to Seganet servers with your existing ISP.

In Europe they didn't offer an ISP and instead you connected to "Dreamarena" free of charge with your existing ISP. So in europe online gaming on dreamcast was free. This make me think that if you didn't have Seganet as your ISP maybe it was still free in NA, you just wouldn't get the supposed benefit of lower latency. You'd think this would be easy to find out online but I can't really find much information about it at all.

Edit:

From delving into forums from 2000-2001 I don't think Seganet subscription was even needed for online multiplayer in NA, you could use your own ISP. - https://forum.dvdtalk.com/video-game-talk/141846-sega-dreamcast-net-can-someone-give-me-walkthrough.html

"Do you think I'd have a problem with any of those free ISPs in logging onto the Seganet?"

"No, you shouldn't have any problem using the free isp's. I use juno, and I suggest you got to www.dreamcastfun.com for a list of available free isps to use on your dreamcast."

Basically seganet was an option but not mandatory. online multiplayer on the dreamcast was free.

Seems like OP was wrong in everything =p