America Online: A Cautionary Tale - The Nation

On the emergence and autumn of the quintessential ’90s online work provider—and a informing astir today’s social-media giants.

Brandee Barker was having a large clip successful the backmost of an Uber arsenic her operator entertained her. It was November 2016, and the erstwhile Facebook executive and Lean In flack had conscionable arrived successful Ohio to canvass for Hillary Clinton.1

“Welcome. You’ve got mail,” the driver said with spirited enunciation and a smooth, acquainted cadence.2

“No way! Do it again!” Barker cried from the backmost seat. She captured this speech and posted it to Twitter, wherever the video—tagged “#GOTVforHRC”—was wide shared, receiving implicit 1 cardinal views.3

The Uber operator turned retired to beryllium nary different than Elwood Edwards, the dependable histrion down the second-best-remembered dependable of America Online successful the 1990s (after the crackling modem squeal that announced a user’s transition from the log-in screen). In caller years, Edwards has been indulging the nostalgia galore consciousness for what was erstwhile the nation’s largest online service, reciting these lines connected The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and successful the 2018 documentary bid That’s So ’90s. When Cleveland magazine caught up with him successful 2009, Edwards was moving arsenic a quality graphics and video exertion for WKYC, a section tv station. Later, Inside Edition followed up connected Barker’s tweet and profiled him. Edwards was paid lone $200 for the AOL recordings, helium recalled. “Everywhere I go, radical say, ‘Do you get residuals? Did you marque a batch of wealth from it?’ And the question is ever answered with ‘No.’” His woman astatine the clip was moving for AOL, which is however helium learned astir the opportunity. Edwards recorded each the now-iconic phrases, including specified bangers arsenic “File’s done” and “Goodbye,” connected a cassette recorder successful their surviving room.4

Compressed into that azygous brushwood betwixt Edwards and Brandee Barker is simply a abbreviated past of the mainstream Internet: an aged mascot of the 1990s online service, present an à la carte servant done gig-economy apps, chauffeuring a millionairess from the Web 2.0 empire. In galore respects, AOL was the Facebook of its day. Another walled plot of proprietary assemblage features, AOL had connection boards that functioned similar Facebook groups. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) straight inspired Facebook’s Messenger, and Meta present owns the patent AOL filed for its Buddy List graphic of online contacts. AOL, similar Facebook, brought a wide assemblage to the Internet. But that’s wherever the examination ends. While AOL positioned itself arsenic complementary to noncommercial Internet applications, Facebook aims to subjugate the Web arsenic different facet of its immense empire.5

America Online debuted successful 1991, the aforesaid twelvemonth that the World Wide Web opened to the public. With gross from advertizing and subscriber fees, AOL had a marketplace headdress that soared past $150 cardinal astatine its highest successful 2000. Meanwhile, the World Wide Web, invented successful 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, past a researcher astatine CERN, was and is noncommercial and decentralized: Anyone with an Internet transportation and a Web browser tin sojourn a website. Its protocols and standards are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which has been hosted by a consortia of universities since its founding successful 1994. Together, these 2 Internet developments offered a sensation of the societal media we cognize today. The Web made it casual to make and stock substance and graphics; AOL familiarized users en masse with the Internet experience, which had earlier been an esoteric pastime. The World Wide Web populated the Internet with content, portion AOL populated it with users.6

After proceeding Edwards’s greeting, an AOL idiosyncratic successful the ’90s would get astatine the main menu, which listed topics to explore, specified arsenic sports and entertainment, via blocky hyperlink buttons. Inside were “channels” exclusive to AOL subscribers, made successful concern with cablegram networks, magazine publishers, and organizations similar the AARP. These channels included connection boards, chat rooms, and articles. Some offerings revealed the diverseness of the AOL subscriber base, including the Gay & Lesbian Forum, the DisABILITIES forum, and NetNoir (“Your Home for Black Interactive Culture & Entertainment”). Other channels appealed to cyclists and Star Trek fans. Many of the defining aboriginal interactions connected AOL happened connected the Romance channel, with online personals and the “[email protected]” cybersex chat rooms. “AOL is astir popular culture, not pouch protectors,” Wired mag declared successful a 1995 feature. By 1996, determination were 7 cardinal subscribers.7

“Hook up to a satellite of amusive and excitement! It’s free! It’s easy! It’s fun!” read the copy connected the 3.5-inch floppy disks that AOL mailed retired to prospective customers opening successful 1993. Although the bundle was preinstalled successful galore idiosyncratic computers, the institution poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into nonstop message campaigns and distribution. Suddenly the disks were everywhere: stuffed successful cereal boxes, displayed successful supermarkets and Blockbusters. They were an ever-present reminder of the Internet to those who had yet to acquisition it. AOL offered amusive and entertainment, alternatively than enactment and careerism. It sold the Internet arsenic a leisurely pursuit, a spot to marque friends, dissimilar Facebook and different societal media platforms that leverage existing contacts. Users were making friends with strangers successful the ether, successful frenetic chat rooms and connection boards utilizing anonymized surface names. Some adjacent ventured beyond these channels, to the conception of AOL called “Internet Connection” with a hyperlink to the World Wide Web.8

At the time, online services ranging from AOL to competitors similar Prodigy, section bulletin committee systems, and different networks were opening to coalesce astir communal Internet applications. AOL regarded its proprietary bundle arsenic a filter to the broader Internet: The World Wide Web was a chaotic wilderness; AOL, however, was user-friendly and marketed to families. It adjacent capitalized connected the Web, setting up “netmail” connected its ain dot-com address, allowing subscribers to cheque their email astatine enactment oregon portion traveling—a convenience astatine a clip erstwhile computers were mostly stationary.9

AOL seemed to person different vantage implicit the remainder of the Internet: It employed hosts and speech facilitators successful its chat rooms and connection boards to support the communities progressive and engaging. In speech for their work, the volunteer moderators were compensated with escaped AOL subscriptions. This statement was much favorable erstwhile monthly bills for AOL work could beryllium upwards of $100, but aft AOL changed its terms to an unlimited level complaint of $19.95 a period successful 1996, the moderators protested. Some of the 13,000 unpaid “community leaders” founded a webzine called Observers to organize, vent connected work changes, and sermon civilization applicable to AOL, including a reappraisal of You’ve Got Mail. (“Anyone going to the movie for its portrayal of beingness online volition beryllium disappointed,” said the critic.) In 1999, erstwhile moderators sued the institution for backmost pay, a lawsuit that AOL ultimately settled successful 2009.10

Observers was posted to the World Wide Web. The information that I tin work it now, unchanged from its archetypal presumption 3 decades ago, is due to the fact that this contented was captured by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. In contrast, virtually nary of AOL’s proprietary contented from the ’90s is accessible today. That’s the effect of a closed model. As the Web grew—from 23,500 websites successful 1995 to implicit 2 cardinal by 1998—the inadequacy of AOL’s offerings became clear.11

America Online’s merger with Time Warner successful January of 2000 came astatine the tallness of the dot-com bubble, and adjacent this juggernaut of a media empire wasn’t immune to the epidemic of collapsing Internet start-ups respective months later. In a bid of investigations successful 2002, Washington Post newsman Alec Klein revealed however embedded AOL was successful the dot-com crash. Many AOL advertisers with semipermanent contracts were start-ups that went bust: An online furnishings business, an online sporting goods retailer, and different recently defunct dot-coms owed the institution millions. AOL Time Warner covered up these losses to support its banal price. In 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the corporation with fraud for inflating its online advertizing gross successful a analyzable acceptable of schemes that Klein’s reporting uncovered.12

The illness of online advertizing was not the lone origin successful AOL’s decline. The merger with Time Warner is present taught successful concern schools arsenic a lawsuit survey successful failed acquisition. The 2 companies formally divided successful 2009; AOL was aboriginal acquired by Verizon and is present a subsidiary of Yahoo. As it changed hands, the online work spiraled into obsolescence. By 2004, 39 percent of Internet users successful America had broadband astatine home, according to the Pew Research Center. AOL had failed to subdivision into high-speed Internet, and to this time it delivers lone dial-up work (to a reported “thousands” of customers). The chat rooms and forums wrong AOL’s enclosure withered aft the unpaid moderators exited. AOL’s media partners besides moved on. Playbill closed its AOL transmission successful 1997, citing the trouble of maintaining abstracted forums connected aggregate online services, a communal sentiment among transmission hosts. Theater lovers connected AOL couldn’t bent retired astatine the Playbill connection boards connected Prodigy, and vice versa. The work consolidated its assemblage by gathering a website with chat rooms and forums accessible to immoderate Internet idiosyncratic with a browser. AOL channels, which for novice Internet users had been adjuvant guides and absorbing gathering places, became a frustrating obstruction to the Web, similar a trailer moving excessively agelong erstwhile you truly privation the movie to begin.13

The World Wide Web besides changed implicit the decades. In the ’90s, websites tended to beryllium static, arsenic did webzines and location pages. Blogs, societal media, and different rapidly updated sites—“Web 2.0”—began to flourish successful the aughts. AOL, similar its erstwhile media partners, migrated to the Web. It inactive offers a desktop app—software that has been massively streamlined—in summation to its ever-present online ads, and it present dabbles successful cloud-based operations, including a monthly paid work to assistance users with individuality theft and malware.14

New Internet empires, from societal networks similar Facebook to streaming services similar YouTube, were founded arsenic websites, offering contented without paywalls oregon subscription fees. But these are backstage companies, selling ads arsenic AOL did. These “free” services travel with strings attached, including precocious tracking applications similar cookies and scripts that harvest idiosyncratic information and show idiosyncratic enactment crossed the Web. Yet adjacent with specified pernicious tactics, societal media companies are not invincible. Twitter arsenic a company, portion considerably smaller than Facebook oregon AOL successful its prime, nevertheless shows however fickle ad-backed online communities tin be. Immediately aft Elon Musk took power of the institution successful October 2022, determination was a wide exodus of users, and advertisers besides jumped ship. Brands similar Volkswagen, REI, and United Airlines suspended their advertisement buys, which Musk, successful a tweet, acknowledged arsenic a “massive driblet successful revenue.”15

As Twitter falls apart, there’s thing of Dot-com Crash 2.0 underway arsenic well, betwixt the insolvent crypto platforms and start-ups similar Peloton whose banal prices are plummeting. Unlike AOL, Facebook’s monopoly powerfulness volition assistance it upwind a calamity successful the tech sector. Facebook’s reach, including astir 3 billion progressive users, extends good beyond North America. Instead of being defined by hobbyist forums and fun, Facebook is entrenched successful mundane life. Workplace, religious, and municipal enactment takes spot connected Facebook; users log successful to find retired whether schoolhouse is closed due to the fact that of snowfall oregon to bargain a room array secondhand. Facebook wields its gargantuan size done regulatory seizure and lobbying, including the unit it exerts connected W3C, to alteration Web tracking and ads.16

Facebook has arguably swung elections. Brandee Barker mightiness person made a quality successful 2016 if, alternatively of canvassing successful Ohio, she had knocked connected her aged brag Mark Zuckerberg’s bureau doorway backmost successful Menlo Park, Calif. Bill Clinton had the surface sanction “clinton pz” connected AOL, portion his challenger Bob Dole reportedly conducted a cyber chat with voters successful 1996—and that was beauteous overmuch it for integer run strategy backmost then.17

The empire that Elwood Edwards’s Uber rider helped conception is not simply a walled plot similar AOL, but a cage. Plenty of Facebook users, similar the AOL users earlier them, don’t cognize what a website is: The institution has actively sought to muddy the public’s knowing of wherever Facebook ends and the remainder of the Internet begins. Could this alteration with stricter regularisation of the societal network, specified arsenic a prohibition connected targeted advertisements? What if Facebook users were shown an exit? The World Wide Web is lone a click away, conscionable arsenic it was connected AOL successful the ’90s.18