cross-posted from: https://lemmy.capebreton.social/post/497698

In 1994, Ted Leonsis was the head of the new media marketing firm he created, Redgate Communications, spun out six years earlier from a CD-ROM based computer shopping business. Redgate dealed in digital media—sometimes called new media—new territory in the marketing world. And he was pretty good at it. That year, he went out to lunch with one his investment bankers, Dan Case. Case mentioned that his brother Steve was working at a small internet company looking to bring internet services to the mainstream. They had only just finished rebranding to a new name, with a new purpose, America Online.

  • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    To be honest, if I could go back in time for a day or two. I would go back to 1994 and find a nice cozy internet Cafe to log into AOL and chat with my friends. The interface is super dated for today’s standards but I miss it so much. I still use their sound notifications on my phone

          • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            As another commenter mentioned, the 90s as peak Reaganomics, the war on drugs were destroying poor neighborhoods, and prescription drug abuse was skyrocketing. Reaganomics were robbing the middle class of what little wealth they had. The war on drugs was ensuring that poor families were being destroyed. Prescription drug over prescription as feeding families directly to the war on drugs.

            That’s the 90s I remember. The entire system had been broken to make as many people as possible poor, and keep them there.

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        90s “prosperity” was entirely fake, still being driven by the “reaganomics” of the 80s, and were the peak before the long, drawn out collapse you’re seeing now that actually started in the 70s but we had managed to stave off. 9/11 was the beginning of the end.

    • wjrii@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The interface is super dated for today’s standards but I miss it so much.

      I still remember “AOL for DOS,” which was really just the core functionality of the Windows alternative “GEOS,” nerfed to only allow the AOL app to run. Teenage me had a guild on Neverwinter Nights and everything. Topped out at 8 people, IIRC.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    1 year ago

    meh, these bundled access terminals were required back in the day for internet access. those applications started out dialup, no internet providing inter-system communication… and then added the internet connectivity until eventually that feature was the only reason to use it. see also; prodigy,msn

  • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    God, I remember the commercials where some dumb kid would push this narrative: “AOL is the Internet!” They would just directly say the lie outright. And after polluting the world in AOL CD-ROMs, it worked for a time.

    Such a scummy corporation. I’m glad Time-Warner got burned when they bought them for a high price, right at the peak where they were going to drop like a cliff in popularity.

    • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I remember the CDs, they were everywhere lol. Luckily my brother was tech savvy and when I got my first PC, I asked what the deal was with AOL links and he laughed saying no one uses “AOL internet”. I remember they all but died in a year.

    • wjrii@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Sure it was marketing speak, but Usenet’s eternal September started in late 1993, and that’s also about when AOL opened up their email to the internet. By late 94 there was a functional browser and they were effectively an ISP with extra stuff (that no one wanted anymore). In some ways, the “AOL is the Internet” angle was an admission that “the Internet” was what people wanted, and AOL itself was redundant. It probably did cause people to spend more on internet service than they needed, but it was already a rear-guard action, whether AOL knew it or not.

    • Null User Object@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I remember a very specific commercial where they were listing stuff that was “on” AOL, most or all of which was just on the broader actual Internet , and then closed with some pitch like, “AOL has things you can’t get anywhere else,” clearly implying everything they just listed was exclusive to AOL. I couldn’t understand why every other ISP wasn’t suing them into oblivion for that crap.

  • makingrain@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    AOL even made its way to the UK. Free CDs all over the place, even accompanying paid coputing mags.

    I’m glad it went away.