Granted, the "nickel and diming" of hotline numbers (1900, 0900, etc) was nowhere as bad as today's cash shops, but a lot of us simply forgot they were always hungry for all our money
Here's a bunch other hotline ads for you to peruse - https://www.retromags.com/gallery/category/1729-telephone-hotlines/
PS: I never understood these american numbers that used letters, how were you supposed to know what was the actual number?
Wow. 1994 is the date of this.
Our local library had the cheat books by then.
Also, the text guides were online either BBS or Usenet. I remember printing out guides by 1994. I guess that wasn't as common as I thought if people were spending on 1-900 numbers. I wonder how much they made doing this?
Gotta remember that home computers weren't "popular" back then either (it was easier for a household to have no computer than to have any), so anything on the internet would be the equivalent of browsing freenet, gemini or i2p today