The Decline of AOL...What Happened?
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4 жыл бұрынAOL became massively popular in the 1990's but has since fallen off almost completely in the world of online services. This video talks about how they rose to that level and the reasons behind their decline from it.
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Company Declines:
Kmart: • The Decline of Kmart.....
Blockbuster: • The Decline of Blockbu...
RadioShack: • The Decline of RadioSh...
Solo Cups: • The Decline of Solo......
Toys "R" Us: • The Decline of Toys R ...
hhgregg: • The Decline of hhgregg...
Pan Am: • The Decline of Pan Am....
ESPN: • The Decline of ESPN......
Gibson: • The Decline of Gibson....
iHeartMedia: • The Decline of iHeartM...
Bon-Ton: • The Decline of Bon-Ton...
Kodak: • The Decline of Kodak.....
General Electric: • The Decline of General...
Woolworth: • The Decline of Woolwor...
Dell: • The Decline of Dell......
Sears: • The Decline of Sears.....
Payless: • The Decline of Payless...
Hostess: • The Decline of Hostess...
Redbox: • The Decline of Redbox....
Nokia: • The Decline of Nokia.....
JCPenney: • The Decline of JCPenne...
Quiznos: • The Decline of Quiznos...
GameStop: • The Decline of GameSto...
NASCAR: • The Decline of NASCAR....
Shopko: • The Decline of Shopko....
MoviePass: • The Decline of MoviePa...
Reebok: • The Decline of Reebok....
The Gap: • The Decline of The Gap...
Pier 1 Imports: • The Decline of Pier 1 ...
Sbarro: • The Decline of Sbarro....
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@JostenDooley 4 жыл бұрын
“Get off the internet we need to use the phone “
@dallasparty316 4 жыл бұрын
But Mom....."You've got Mail"
@amehak1922 4 жыл бұрын
I heard that alot lol
@bigbabysld 4 жыл бұрын
OMG...you bringing back sum serious memories
@Starbright1984 4 жыл бұрын
Classic!!!
@shindrithargriethrat8408 4 жыл бұрын
I remember getting in trouble for BBSing, dialing up from my computer to another computer using text-based menus to communicate and play rudimentary text-based games.
@ChandlerTingle 4 жыл бұрын
The Decline of the History Channel
@CollectorFanatic101 4 жыл бұрын
Theres no evidence that aliens werent at the first thanksgiving...
@donkeyhobo34 4 жыл бұрын
Decline of cowboy butt sex
@MrApontjos 4 жыл бұрын
Did Aliens influence the Nazis?
@donkeyhobo34 4 жыл бұрын
Decline of people banging
@jasonwebb5964 4 жыл бұрын
@@donkeyhobo34 sodameeeee. Sodameeeee.
@jrwheeler81 2 жыл бұрын
AOL will always hold a very special place in my heart. It's where I met my husband 22 years ago. We met in a chatroom one day in June of 2000 by total fate. It turned out that we only lived just over 3 hours apart (within reasonable driving distance), with me living in central Maine and him in Boston. We had a great deal in common as he was a paramedic and I had just become an EMT, which was how we initially connected and bonded. I was only 18 and had just graduated from high school and he had just turned 30, so there was an 11-year age gap, but we instantly connected. Instant messaging on AOL turned into hours long phone calls. Then, about a week after we started talking, he made the trip to meet me and we spent several amazing days together in Acadia National Park and almost instantly fell in love. The rest is history. We had an amazing 22 years together and were rarely ever apart. He was my soulmate and the love of my life, not to mention my rock. If it hadn't been for AOL, we never would have crossed paths and met. Sadly, he passed away exactly 1 month and 2 days ago very suddenly and unexpectedly and I miss him so, so much. 😥 Thank you, AOL, for leading me to the love of my life.
@456puff Жыл бұрын
I'm sorry about your loss. I hope you'll find peace and comfort as time passes. ❤
@heathjones7002 Жыл бұрын
Thanks for sharing 💕
@chrisdekock8864 Жыл бұрын
Wow, awesome story!
@muffs55mercury61 Жыл бұрын
That's a wonderful story. You never know where you'll find love, often in the most unexpected places.
@timmah7874 Жыл бұрын
Amazing story. I’m sorry for you loss, but I’m happy you found your true love.
@DesertRainReads 2 жыл бұрын
I miss AOL, the chatrooms, the icons, the sound effects, and the folks I met through AOL. Crazy, things are not the same unfortunately.
@RoyCyberPunk Жыл бұрын
I don't miss dial up but the rest yes.
@MicklowFilms Жыл бұрын
A shame AOL couldn’t adapt to changing times with faster internet technologies.
@prettypuff1 Жыл бұрын
Man the chat rooms
@DodgyDaveGTX Жыл бұрын
@@prettypuff1every day after school I'd go to my library just so I could use the official Sum41 chatroom. Man I miss those flame wars, so many "your mom" insults were thrown around
@dougfredricks2017 10 ай бұрын
I remember IRC type chat rooms being very popular in that era...
@chaddavis523 3 жыл бұрын
Somehow the excitement of "you've got mail" faded to "ughhhh 46 emails I have to delete."
@Beastinvader 2 жыл бұрын
All of it spam too
@HonklerUnitedInc 2 жыл бұрын
Why I stopped caring years ago hello spam goodbye time wasted
@prtdiva 2 жыл бұрын
Ugh my Gmail inbox currently has 9967 emails and I’m always at risk of running out of storage…mostly from spam 😑
@slice-o-life 2 жыл бұрын
I’ve got wayyyy more than that.
@pokiblue5870 2 жыл бұрын
I have 8000 msg unread from 5 gmail accounts…💀
@spotifyseascapessmoothjazz 4 жыл бұрын
Dad: "I'll need you to stay off the internet for a while, I'm expecting a call"
@tyronewilliams7556 4 жыл бұрын
I literally heard my dad's voice in my head while reading this lol
@honolulublues5548 4 жыл бұрын
That's why I always was on late at night. I would get off of work at 1:00 AM and be on AOL until 3:00 AM as that is when they would shutdown for maintenance. I did end up meeting my wife in there, so it is a fond memory.
@skylx0812 4 жыл бұрын
We had two phone lines. I paid the phone bills. It was a critical piece of equipment. I used it to download Half Life 2. I'd have it downloading all night. Wake in the morn, start the day. Go to work, come home. Open up the old olive drab Steam platform, pause download. Surf the net for the evening. Get ready for bed, open up Steam, hit the Resume Download button and go to bed. I don't even remember how long it took for that grand and glorious day when it finally said *Download Comeplete* Game Ready to Play.
@hamsterama 4 жыл бұрын
My parents eventually solved this issue by paying for a second phone line. They got rid of the second phone line in 2002, when broadband became affordable. I do not feel any nostalgia for the days of AOL. It would take two hours to download one normal-length song in mp3 format. A short video would take hours and hours. And if you lost the connection in the middle of a download, well, too bad, you'd have to start all over again. Plus websites would take several minutes to load. Broadband is so awesome, because everything is instant.
@patrickbrown8557 4 жыл бұрын
@@hamsterama I think the nostalgia people feel is more about what an exciting time it was. No doubt our high speed internet is way better but most of us alive today witnessed the birth of the information age first hand. Nothing like this had happened since the industrial revolution. Entire generations pass between moments like that, so we really are lucky to have been there and experienced it.
@Vizkos Жыл бұрын
As a teen during the burst of AOL, the reason for its death among everyone I knew was the rise of broadband. Online games were becoming more mainstream, and when a technology became more mainstream that allowed people to browse the internet or game and not take up the phone line (DSL), everyone flocked to it. My family went to DSL ~2003-2004. Side note, I lost count of how many times I heard "WHO IS ON THE INTERNET, GET OFF I NEED TO USE THE PHONE" haha
@alec57 Жыл бұрын
Yup this. I see alot of other people claiming other things but it was honestly this. I remember trying to play Tony Hawk Underground online on dial up lol. It was atrocious. DSL got a little better and then when broadband hit, AOL couldn't keep up with the tech advancements. Or they just kinda gave up really. Instead of advancing they just threw in the towel and said "good run".
@candle86 Жыл бұрын
@@alec57 fyi DSL is broadband, even that bog slow 128k was broadband in its day, i remember getting DSL in 2005, my family where late to the party, but we finally got it, and OMG i so loved 1.5MB/s downloads vs the earthlink we had that said it was like having a 96kb/s connection lol
@alec57 Жыл бұрын
@@candle86 Holy crap I remember Eathlink... that service was so bad. We had Netzero too for a while lol. Couldn't connect half the time.
@Superman-xr1oh 9 ай бұрын
@@alec57Why couldn't AOL have just offered broadband access through the phone companies? I remember AOL offering broadband at some point, I wonder what went wrong.
@kman915 9 ай бұрын
Can't forget when one time my dad wanted to use the phone. He picked it up, heard that funny dial up sound and was very confused. He said, "What's that noise?!" It was too funny 😂
@ralphus44 Жыл бұрын
I remember signing up in 1996 and just trying over and over to actually go online, because I was always getting the busy signal. Then they came out with the redialer and it would do the work for me. Just hearing that electronic modem sound after it connected followed by "Welcome! You've got mail!" was like winning the lottery.
@akashsingha4368 Ай бұрын
Hey ! Can you reply if you're available
@ralphus44 Ай бұрын
@@akashsingha4368 Okay
@akashsingha4368 18 күн бұрын
@@ralphus44 I had a college project based on aol case study.
@aaronclift 4 жыл бұрын
No joke: I knew a guy who collected so many AOL discs that he made a coffee table out of them.
@TubboDaKittyCat 4 жыл бұрын
Aaron Clift Now THATS art. Lol
@remakeyourself 4 жыл бұрын
So he scooped up like one week's worth of mailed out discs to his immediate neighborhood, lol. Seriously, I think we had more AOL discs than all other spam mail combined.
@sirmang9032 4 жыл бұрын
That's dedication. I got felt for the bottoms of the discs and made coasters. LOL
@MalarkeySixTwo 4 жыл бұрын
My late grandfather used them as coasters in his house
@bbb_888 4 жыл бұрын
I still have a few AOL discs left! Time to use them now I guess....
@imanadult7432 4 жыл бұрын
At some point, most of us have logged out of aol and heard that, “Goodbye!” for the very last time... Something to think about.
@rlvixen 4 жыл бұрын
Nope! The voice still exists lol! So does the “ you got mail” voice.
@Monificent 4 жыл бұрын
I'm too high for this
@aurorabear9969 4 жыл бұрын
Remember the option to change your "Welcome," "You've got mail," and "Goodbye" greetings? I had Garfield as mine when I was ~10. AOL was great.
@SuperBoomshack 4 жыл бұрын
I got mail, i got mail, i got mail, yayyyyyyyyyy
@HipHop4lyfeallday 4 жыл бұрын
My childhood! 🤯
@JhonnyBoi Жыл бұрын
At my last job, AOL was a client of the company I worked for so I got the chance to visit the AOL headquarters once, which I did not know was in my area (DC). This was probably 2017/2018, it was weird because they have pretty tight security, like metal detectors, gates, and all. And the updated logos on the outside made me think they were making or getting ready to make a comeback. But once inside, it was sad. Like one of those dying malls. Broken lights, damaged walls in areas, etc. All while being an active workplace. It was a pretty big campus and wonder what it was like during its hey day. I grew up on AOL and anyone born in the 90s have some nostalgia towards it. I still remember the last time I used it, we had just got Verizon DSL and the AOL program changed from blue to gold. I was finally able to watch videos. Thanks AOL for being such an important part of my life growing up, but like most technology, RIP.
@adaywithoutdonald64 11 ай бұрын
It seems like most mergers are failures. I guess they do it because it increases the shareholders' stock prices, even for a brief moment.
@JhonnyBoi 11 ай бұрын
@@adaywithoutdonald64I don’t think it was because of the merger. It’s just a result of technology constantly changing. Look at cable/satellite tv or blockbuster. Great products during its prime but eventually if they don’t innovate, they’ll be phased out. I mean look at KZfaq for example. It was on its way out before it was bought by Google. AOL wasn’t able to provide an alternative to dial up and ultimately failed because of that. But I bet if they had become a leader in internet providers, they’d be a big company now like Google or Facebook.
@PickleRick91x 9 ай бұрын
Lol tf I did aol tech support in 2012.... They still going old ppl rely on it
@applejacks971 Жыл бұрын
As a trucker back then and still, I'd have my phone cord in my laptop bag so I could plug in to the phone lines at the truck stop. back then, all the booths in the restaurants had phones. When booting up AOL, it'd give you a list of phone numbers to select from. If one didnt work or took too long to load, you'd have to click a different one and start over. It was a PIA and slow, but technology was in its infancy, that's just the way it was. I was impressed it worked at all, and even more impressed that we do the same thing now with a hand held phone! Incredible!!!!
@AdmiralBlackstar 4 жыл бұрын
I miss that modem noise...yes being able to access the internet in two seconds is nice, but that noise made every log-in feel epic, like opening the Stargate or something.
@TheDr502 4 жыл бұрын
I don't miss dial-up at all. Slow, noisy, and bulky.
@AdmiralBlackstar 4 жыл бұрын
@meaturama Stargate is a sci-fi franchise where the then-contemporary US Air force conducted off world exploration using an ancient teleportation device called the Stargate, a giant ring that can connect to other such ring via a wormhole. The original series' earth gate had to be physically dialed like an oversized rotary phone, with an inner ring being spun around to dial a gate address. The original series Stargate SG-1 was quite good. I highly recommend it
@colico14 4 жыл бұрын
That sound ruled.
@darthslackus499 4 жыл бұрын
@meaturama I know what a Stargate is...but WTF is a 'sargate'?
@wormer66 4 жыл бұрын
you're likely the only one who thinks of that sound in nostalgia.... bahaha >.
@TimFrenzFotography 3 жыл бұрын
I use the AIM chat message sound for my text messages. Every once in a while, I love when someone will hear it and see them perk up like "Wait, I know that sound."
@Tibstradamus 3 жыл бұрын
Same lol
@Notyournormalfans 3 жыл бұрын
I’m inspired by this
@freddyboy800 3 жыл бұрын
That makes me happy
@Rushan2112 3 жыл бұрын
Not AOL related, but I do the same thing. My iPhone ringtone is the old Nokia tone.
@NoxLegend1 3 жыл бұрын
I can remember the sound in my head. Ca ching!
@splewy Жыл бұрын
I was in high school marching band in the early 2000s (I know, need alert). We would use those AOL CDs as place-markers on the ground when learning our marching sets. My first year we used poker chips, but AOL CDs turned out to be cheaper and more readily available.
@AOTProductions 11 ай бұрын
Haha then one day they were gone
@carminealiffi9738 2 жыл бұрын
I got my first computer in 1998 and just loved AOL and everything about it. I loved the chat rooms and made many friends locally here with real people in my area and actually got together with them. I miss AOL and enjoyed the computer so much more during the AOL days
@frankfahrenheit9537 9 ай бұрын
Facebook destroyed everything
@CollideFan1 5 ай бұрын
Same. Bought my first computer in 98 and AOL was my internet access until the early 2000s. Still use their e-mail
@ZenoDLC 4 жыл бұрын
Gameline, requires expensive hardware, has questionable game choices, relies on being online.... So basically Stadia?
@HeavyMetalMouse 4 жыл бұрын
We didn't start the fire...
@zanerich9460 4 жыл бұрын
@@HeavyMetalMouse swap expensive hardware for expensive internet and your super correct
@rifasclub 4 жыл бұрын
Too soon?
@MrFeelGoodJson24YTP 4 жыл бұрын
You also forgot Sega Channel. It's also the same but uses cable TV that pioneered the cable internet.
@Reezuspieces2592 4 жыл бұрын
Those that forget the past...
@Sevenigma777 4 жыл бұрын
Everyone got so psyched when they heard "You've got mail"
@AxxLAfriku 4 жыл бұрын
HOLY HOLY!!! I can proudly say that I have the two HOTTEST women on this planet as MY GIRLFRIENDS! I am the unprettiest KZfaqr ever, but they love me for what's inside! Thanks for listening san
@lordofthechinesebiscuit8436 4 жыл бұрын
@@AxxLAfriku HOL UP you have two? If so then your a god damn pimp.
@JimmyTurner 4 жыл бұрын
My first email was spam lol
@Sevenigma777 4 жыл бұрын
@@AxxLAfriku why is this a response to my comment? Frankly I don't think anyone cares how many gfs u have. Hard enough to please one good woman.
@Moonbeam143 4 жыл бұрын
I need. It was great hearing it when I went on years ago.
@wendyg1059 Жыл бұрын
What I remember most about AOL is how many free months I'd get out of it just by calling to cancel the free trial. Every time, without fail, they'd offer 3 free months to see if I could be happier with the service. I got free AOL for a year and a half before they finally "allowed" me to cancel, lmfao!!
@deerlord2363 11 ай бұрын
Free internet for a year and a half?! You are freaking genius! LOL 🤣
@justingudvangen3379 9 ай бұрын
I did the same. Sirius XM is the modern day equivalent now.
@MatrixRoland Жыл бұрын
I joined AOL back in the 90’s because it seemed to be the most bang for the buck. CompuServe and others was around before AOL but just seemed to be too expensive, so I never tried the others. AOL’s campaign to let users try it out for free for a trial period was a good move and is why I even tried it. Once on, I was hooked. It was only after cable came out with broadband, that I left AOL, but I remember using AOL messenger for some time after switching to broadband so that I could chat with all my friends how were still putting up with the slow dial-up method.
@hewitc Жыл бұрын
Broadband killed it. You didn't need AOL to get access to the Internet. Is was good for e-mail, but the other features were poor compared to those then being offered by others directly on the Internet.
@andrewscasualmtb Жыл бұрын
@@hewitc But but but Slingo!!!
@gamewizardks 4 жыл бұрын
I'm old enough to remember when those free disks AOL mailed out were floppies.
@fagout100 4 жыл бұрын
3.5 BABY
@jw11432 4 жыл бұрын
LOL...we never ran out of floppies. Those bad boys kept coming. It kinda sucked when they switched to CD's (and was neat to see the mini-CD's), but it didn't take too long before floppies were made irrelevant. But man, those were the days.
@matthewasplund551 4 жыл бұрын
I remember getting floppy disks from all of my friends so that I could get enough to install Linux on my system.
@monkeyballs512 4 жыл бұрын
Yup
@monkeyballs512 4 жыл бұрын
jw11432 it took a very long time. Starting with 5 1/4’s, I was using floppies since the late 70’s
@joonpak 3 жыл бұрын
Chatting on AIM during high school years is a fond memory.
@absolutesadlad2297 3 жыл бұрын
Haha yeah, I remember using Trillian so I could talk to my friends on MSN and AIM at the same time without having to run both separately. That and good ol ICQ. Man the 90/early 2000s were awesome
@Alvin_Vivian 3 жыл бұрын
And ICQ, MSN, and mIRC.
@labelsandlife 3 жыл бұрын
Yes!! Take me back 😩
@Rumple. 3 жыл бұрын
Back in middle school me and my friends went around and stole everyone's CDs got hundreds of them and had a huge frisbee fight in a field
@joonpak 3 жыл бұрын
@@Rumple. lol!
@mariapadilla8061 Жыл бұрын
I worked for AOL for 10 yrs, when Steve Case was running the company it was a blast..then Time Warner took over and it all changed...I still have my AOL email..thanks for the memories AOL🙂
@jason3955 2 жыл бұрын
I remember my cousin knowing the "secret phone numbers" with an * at the beginning that was supposed to get you online faster during the dial-up days.
@ironicdivinemandatestan4262 4 жыл бұрын
My dad still has an aol email. The "You've got mail!" sound still plays.
@fjcruisefjcruise4527 4 жыл бұрын
No way
@undermoonlightglow 4 жыл бұрын
For real?
@zacharycox9835 4 жыл бұрын
@@undermoonlightglow I have one as well and I can confirm. It does still play
@honolulublues5548 4 жыл бұрын
My father-in-law still does, too. He's 75 and he won't get even use gmail even though he has an account through his android phone.
@zacharycox9835 4 жыл бұрын
@@honolulublues5548 I don't blame him, I dont use my gmail either
@briansavage932 4 жыл бұрын
I was a teenager during AOL's boom years, having graduated in 2001. Everything shifted culturally in 2000. The moment broadband hit the market everyone my age jumped on it immediately. I remember my friend getting a cable modem and canceling AOL at the same time. Everyone I knew did the same. At that point our landing page for the internet became Google or some other search engine. It was all about AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) from that point on. Also, a lot of people used ICQ or Yahoo messenger. This was also when message boards really took off in popularity. Really though, what drove broadband was Napster, and later Limewire. If you wanted a ton of music and movies you had to drop AOL and get broadband.
@angelxxsin 4 жыл бұрын
Remembering ICQ's interface and sounds makes me incredibly nostalgic.
@detailsmove 4 жыл бұрын
aim and limewire sum up my childhood
@michiganjack1337 4 жыл бұрын
Same here Class of ‘01. I remember our shitty little neighborhood got Comcast broadband in ‘98-99. A friend of mine was lucky enough to have a It and good computer. We would use it to play Quake and CS at blazing speeds. Not to mention it was a godsend for school reports. And was about 80% cheaper then it is today. Comcast you’ve become the villain.
@jenpen1107 4 жыл бұрын
I graduated in 07 and I think i was 15 or 16 when we got broadband. It was amazing. My mom and I used to watch Foamy the Squirrel videos and we would let it load and go do other things and come back a half hour later and the video was finally loaded. When we got broadband it would load up in like 10 minutes and then the world of music theft became known to me. I miss the early, wild ass days of the internet. But AIM was where it was at. Like you get home from school, get in the computer and chat with your friends about what moody song lyrics to put up for that day because Amy was a totally f-ing B, in science class.
@johnnyhotcakes5217 4 жыл бұрын
Also a 2001 high school grad, funny how this is nostalgic lol
@timestealr2967 Жыл бұрын
What I remember from AOL that irritated EVERYONE was the massive push of their AOL disks. As you stated, they were EVERYWHERE! It seemed that if you opened a can of Beans or your doctor performed surgery on you, there's an AOL disk inside! People were so fed up with these mass quantities of AOL disks that a group got together, rumored to have collected millions of disks, and then took them to AOL and dumped them at their doors. This was the public proclaiming 'ENOUGH ALREADY!' and from there AOL seemed to disintegrate into oblivion!
@marczimmerman8524 Жыл бұрын
It's fascinating to look back at where we've been so far in technology.
@markmerzweiler909 4 жыл бұрын
When most Americans could get faster internet connectivity at a cheaper price through their cable provider...that doomed AOL
@garbageday587 4 жыл бұрын
What about Canadians too ?
@heavysystemsinc. 4 жыл бұрын
ISP's used to provide email and webspace. Now they charge more and provide neither. A lot of 'standards' have changed. That's why I avoided AOL because I could have a free webpage and multiple email accounts for the same price as AOL.
@eloytrevino9101 4 жыл бұрын
I worked at an aol tech support call center, I knew they were doomed when people who had roadrunner started asking me if they could connect to the internet by simply using their browser. Once people realized that they didnt need the aol junk software it was done.
@heavysystemsinc. 4 жыл бұрын
@HI BYE lol no.
@aalloy6881 4 жыл бұрын
Didn't help that, if memory serves, AOL were much better salesmen than providers of a quality product.....The family was subscribed to AOL for a week or so sometime before 2000...And that was long enough.
@SluiceBoxDon 4 жыл бұрын
I met my wife on AOL, married 21 years. Still have my AOL email as my primary service.
@Spike-ee6om 4 жыл бұрын
Happy to hear that! My dad still has his aol email too after all these years.
@Krysdavar 4 жыл бұрын
Ha ha I met my wife on AOL too back in 1997. Still together as well. AOL email is long gone though. Have had Yahoo since the early 2000's, I don't think it has the same parameters as regular accounts do today.
@Krysdavar 4 жыл бұрын
I remember we would down load wav files of music bits, and go to chat rooms and talk, and play these music bits for how we were feeling. Only a few seconds long of course, but it was great, but each person had to have the file or the other couldn't hear it when you did the command in the chat room ha ha.
@benjaminmann6963 4 жыл бұрын
Dogs Life Don no way?! Lol! Wow!
@vaderladyl 4 жыл бұрын
Me too. I use mine every day.
@CranberryFo Жыл бұрын
Interestingly, AOL remains a small part of my life to this very day. I got a screen name for their messanger, and with it came an email address. I used that email address for certain types of communications. As time passed, AOL became a shell of its former self. No longer used for Internet access. Its messanger eventually died. But that email address was never shut down, and is still in use today. It's not something I really give much thought to, but now that I think about it, its rather interesting that I have a decades old email address from when I was a young girl that to this day has outlived virtually all other aspects of AOL.
@Gudi102 Жыл бұрын
Great video to watch. Who could EVER forget the "You Got Mail" prompt? And the "Good Bye"logging off. Not to mention the squeaky sounds of the modems logging in. Good times...
@JohnCroucherAU 4 жыл бұрын
“Free trial” but you could keep signing up with a new CD. So many CDs used for hours of online age of empires.
@itisnottaken4444 4 жыл бұрын
Bruh that was my game. Did you play AOE1 or 2
@SonofMosesandAaron 4 жыл бұрын
Do you remember when they came out with Juno and net zero free dialup
@djmajiktuch82 4 жыл бұрын
I would just call them to cancel but they would always give me three more months of free service if I'd stay with them. It went on like that for like a year.😆
@ody5288 4 жыл бұрын
That's what boosted their user account numbers drastically. People creating several new accounts helped pad their numbers
@Baddie_xP 4 жыл бұрын
Age of Empires is still so amazing.
@Me-wk3ix 4 жыл бұрын
I can't believe Gameline was doing that in '83. It seems like they were maybe a bit too ahead of their time but were kind of part in helping pave the way to what we have now.
@Raskolnikov70 4 жыл бұрын
My parents considered getting it for our 2600 but it was pretty expensive, along with a whole bunch of other Atari stuff that was getting churned out that turned out to be junk so they probably figured it wasn't worth the cost. I remember the '83 crash vividly too because of how annoyed I was after spending $40-$50 per game right before it and how junky a lot of the titles were. It seems cool in hindsight but at the time it was percieved as overpriced and overhyped junk.
@kirklesser 4 жыл бұрын
I had one as a kid. The problem was I didn't know you couldn't just switch games so I went through my monthly limit in 3 days, then the decline happened.
@GregNixon 4 жыл бұрын
does anyone remember something called the SEGA channel? This was kind of similar, except it was in the '90s, and it went through the cable company instead of the phone lines. Basically, for a flat monthly rate, it had a device that plugged into your Sega Genesis console, and each month you'd get a selection of games you could download and play. Each month it would change to different games. There were dozens each month to choose from. Very similar to what this guy tried to do, except more successful.
@BleedForTheWorld 4 жыл бұрын
@@GregNixon was there lag in those titles? We didn't have SEGA channel. Was it like PlayStation Now or Google Stadia where games were streamed onto the console or home system?
@TheRogueRockhound 4 жыл бұрын
Easier to see why some intelligentsia , such as Eric Weinstein, say we are innovatively stagnant and have been for decades.
@f1dg37 Жыл бұрын
I was an AOL user when I was a child, but grew up reading AOL published blogs and the like. I think people would be surprised how big AOL was as a internet news publisher.
@bloqk16 Жыл бұрын
When the broadband service was connected to a dedicated ISP, that spelled the end of AOL with being the dominant ISP. For those younger people out there: Back in the era of dialup, using existing landline phone connections, an internet user could select among dozens of ISPs. The one I used back then was by AT&T. But with broadband landlines, they connected directly with the ISP the landlines went to, cutting out AOL as a ISP.
@michaelmapes4119 10 ай бұрын
Funny you should mention ATT. When I lived in Lewiston ID (Which is a smaller city in the middle of nowhere), ATT took over the local cable provider around, if I remember correctly, '98 or '99. And with it, they brought in Broadband, which meant we were one of the first people in the country to have "High speed internet". Remember all the chats I had around 98/99 with people living in much bigger cities that still used Dial-up.
@ChrisGorski 4 жыл бұрын
Not going to lie, that AOL environment in the late 90s is super nostalgic for me
@dragonquesti8629 3 жыл бұрын
Same and I wasn't even alive back then
@mickeyfreaktv 4 жыл бұрын
The sounds of "you got mail!" and dial up loading is like music to my ears!
@mickeyfreaktv 4 жыл бұрын
Rusty Shackleford Good times! 😂😂
@MrGibsn1960 11 ай бұрын
I actually met a person in a random chat room one day in the very early days of AOL and we continued meeting online to chat and hit it off. I think I was 12 at the time. We would talk on the phone periodically and when I was a senior in high school I called her up when I was in town. She ended up coming to my graduation that year and that was the first time I had ever seen her. We dated for a short time but it didn’t work out…At first. Fast forward 6 more years and she came to a concert to see me and we hit it off again like we’d never stopped talking. We’ve been happily married 15 years and have two kids together, the oldest being older than me when I “met” my wife. Unreal.
@karinscott4455 Жыл бұрын
Thanks for trip down memory lane. A huge thing I remember about them is those chat rooms. That was a unique thing for everyone.
@Shirofeather 4 жыл бұрын
LOL, I was on the computer while watching this and legitimately thought my internet had cut out with that last AOL “goodbye”. XD I guess that ingrained panic response has yet to extinguish.
@matthewtuel2747 4 жыл бұрын
Yeah my first thought was "CRAP!!!!" and my heart skipped a beat there. I recall my Dad who would use WebTV in his home theater, often kicking me off when he tried to connect. Wasn't a big deal, I would switch to the other phone line and redial. We had a phone line switcher for the PC just for this reason! Good times!
@NinaRossBusiness 4 жыл бұрын
*They may have lasted longer if they would NOT have sent all those damn CDs* I received at least 200 of them!
@ashleyshim2078 4 жыл бұрын
Lmaoo ikr
@chartle1 4 жыл бұрын
Those cds is what drove their growth. But at some point reached saturation. I guess it was the only way they knew and couldn't adjust
@Raskolnikov70 4 жыл бұрын
Only 200? But what did you use for insulating your house and attic after your coaster and frisbee collection was complete?
@averagered4413 4 жыл бұрын
UMM... OK THEN.
@CamaroAmx 4 жыл бұрын
I hear you. I literally had internet for free for years due to those free trials. Why pay for it when I could just get anther free trial? That may of helped in their downfall. The free trial CDs may have helped with name recognition, but I doubt if it helped with revenue.
@racheysdad Жыл бұрын
I worked for Warner Bros. during the acquisition by AOL and it was horrible. They made is switch from MS outlook to AOL mail, which is definitely not for business/corporate use. I remember there was a pop up asking me if I wanted to order ink cartridges every time I'd print an email. After 5 months of that mail fiasco, they let us switch back to outlook. And many of us were angry that the only reason they were able to buy Time Warner was because of the huge run up in their stock price. Like what did a dial up internet provider know about running an Media Entertainment Company? Worst acquisition in history!!!
@redrumloa Жыл бұрын
You kind of glossed over their history with Q-Link. The way they shut down Q-Link left a really bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. To this day I use the nickname "redrumloa" online as I have since about 1996 (read it backwards). There was a huge online archive of Commodore software that users begged AOL to allow them to back it up before shutting down, and AOL ignored them. There was a huge amount of Commodore software lost forever due to AOL's col actions. Things like this, along with annoying and wasteful junkmail campaigns, made them have a huge built in badwill (opposite of goodwill). Old school users hated them for what they did to Q-Link. Power users found their platform remedial. Normies got annoyed with the daily junkmail advertisements they got that kept stacking up.
@blastofo Жыл бұрын
I had a super slow 1200 baud modem I bought for my C64 for $80 when I was 12 so I could go on Q-Link. Parents threw the modem in the trash after I ran up a $200 phone bill, since it costed $5 an hour. I was fascinated with Club Caribe, which was like a prototype of an MMO. Took me forever to save up for that modem at that age.
@danielprotaganist7551 Жыл бұрын
I remember the cultural hate toward AOL. Supposedly the AOL software on those discs acted as a sort of rootkit of the time as well and bogged down the system forever after being installed.
@staringcorgi6475 Жыл бұрын
I thought people moved on from the c64 by than
@Paultimate7 Жыл бұрын
Yeah, the company was souless and thats why they ultimately failed. They were fake and stupid.
@stanleymasterson1135 Жыл бұрын
I used AOL from their start and never even heard of Qlink before today
@Gilbarwaters 3 жыл бұрын
It was frustrating many times using AOL, but man, when you heard the “You’ve got Mail” voice, that was the best.
@speedracer1945 2 жыл бұрын
If only that guy got a dollar each time it used his voice he be rich .
@ladiesgentswegothim 4 жыл бұрын
I remember as a teen in 1995 I was at a friend of a friend's house, and the girl pointed to her computer and asked me, "hey you wanna get on the internet?" And I must've had the blankest black hole of a dumbass stare humanly possible. I didn't know what TF this person just said to me lol.
@danejurus69 4 жыл бұрын
I still remember the first time I was introduced to the internet via Netscape Navigator and a website called Yahoo! I was friggin mesmerized. What is this sorcery and do you mind if I sit here for a few hours and type stuff in?
@JstAnothrGrl24 4 жыл бұрын
@@danejurus69 OMG netscape! yes. that was my one and only browser for years.
@franklingonzalez1003 4 жыл бұрын
My introduction to the Internet happened in middle school. I had a book report to do over the weekend and needed to check out a few books from the school library. While I was walking through the shelves, I came upon a few Asian kids who were using the Internet to download images of DragonBall Z characters. Simultaneously, this was my introduction to anything anime. I asked him how he was making the images appear and who were the characters. Life was never the same.
@michaelboyd395 3 жыл бұрын
To be fair, computers weren't as ubiquitous in 95.
@zpushy633sora8 3 жыл бұрын
She Probably had a Crush on you which means she Probably liked you.
@gamersparadise743 Жыл бұрын
the late 90s-early 2000s was a very fun time to be a kid. this brings back some good memories of using AOL and AIM to talk to my friends.
@alec57 Жыл бұрын
Lv1 bbl
@kbidols 10 ай бұрын
The nostalgia is exciting, your contents are interesting, I think I'll keep coming back to your channel from time to time. Thank you.
@positively_broad_st3780 4 жыл бұрын
Those damn discs were attached to everything: Books, magazines, cereal boxes, toys, you name it, there was an AOL disc attached. It was like they were multiplying in retail environments...
@danialhowe9814 4 жыл бұрын
amen it was truely abusive lol
@andrewbuhman1066 3 жыл бұрын
"You may not even know what the Commodore 64 was..." Oh, I know. It was awesome for its time.
@777didymus 3 жыл бұрын
Sorry I had a TRS80 Radio Shack
@toastedjoe1013 2 жыл бұрын
Lunar Lander
@ericiidx Жыл бұрын
My dad was a systems engineer, so I grew up with a nerd dad and plenty of computers to tinker with. Perhaps because he worked for a communications company, we were a "local ISP" household rather than an AOL-subscribing one. I don't even think it was around yet, as I remember a number of years of early Internet (well, World Wide Web) use prior to the boom of AOL's popularity. Most of my friends (who even owned computers to begin with) would just stick with AOL. We used to poke fun at it, Internet for n00bs and all that, but I still have really fond memories of the impact it had on late 90s subculture.
@commonsense3921 8 ай бұрын
You a nerd just like your Dad.
@Mango.Bandicoot Жыл бұрын
I remember the AOL online games. Those were lit. Chat rooms, AIM. "The good ol' days" as they say. My kids take things for granted when the internet stream dips below 100MB/s lol I tell them we used to only have one online device and we couldn't make phone calls while we were using it. I sometimes wish we could go back to those days just to learn to appreciate life a bit more.
@jam12588 11 ай бұрын
lit.?
@smonelh 4 жыл бұрын
I remember having 1000 AOL email address because we couldn’t afford to pay for the subscription🤣
@CancunManny 3 жыл бұрын
Did you ever use AOL Hell to create fake banking account and credit card numbers?
@danieldavis2055 4 жыл бұрын
I remember AOL when they were sending out floppy discs, way before CDs. Those floppies could be formatted and used as actually useful storage media.
@thebra 3 жыл бұрын
Same, it was great getting free floppy disks.
@laurendoe168 3 жыл бұрын
Same. I just got done posting a comment that we'd grab as many as the store would allow and re-format them.
@styx53ocean Жыл бұрын
I used to cut up the CDs and use them to scare critters out of my garden! I was cleaning out a bunch of stuff in a storage locker recently and found about 30 of the old discs.
@dano612s Жыл бұрын
wow i did this too!!!
@mattlloyd1799 Жыл бұрын
That was one the finest timed commercial breaks I have ever seen on a KZfaq channel
@BrendaD72 9 ай бұрын
I worked for a mail distribution place and AOL was the account I worked on. Each disc had a different purpose…to track what kind of advertising for AOL was most effective. There was a different type # for each campaign, and it had that # on each disc. So like if you got the disc at a store, in a magazine, answered a tv commercial, sent in a mailing flyer, etc. We had a database that kept track of what advertising method was most effective. They kept us BUSY, but I ended up leaving when I had my daughter in 2002. Oddly enough, I never used the service. The only reason I had an AOL id was to communicate with the people we worked with at AOL.
@normandonnelly1713 4 жыл бұрын
i remember how hard it was to cancle AOL and having to wipe your computer to get the AOL software off it
@andrewscasualmtb 4 жыл бұрын
Word. Took my mom 3 times to finally cancel our service. They were the absolute worst when it came to just cancelling the damned thing.
@pinkfreud62 4 жыл бұрын
I had AOL from 1998 to 2009 & it only took 1 phone call & it was done 100%. Guess I was lucky.
@TheSimba86 4 жыл бұрын
AOL had "customer retention specialists" who absolutely would not cancel your service no matter how many hours you spent trying, finally had to close our bank account to be rid of them.
@rollin9042 4 жыл бұрын
@@TheSimba86 it's because they got bonuses whenever they could retain a customer. the department was called "saves". I worked in tech support at the Albuquerque office for six months and when I put in my notice to quite, they took me over to that department and had me sit with them and listen in on calls to see if I would be interested in switching to the saves department. I declined even for a lot more money. They didn't want me to quit lol, it was just as hard to leave the job as it was to cancel your subscription.
@TokoWH 4 жыл бұрын
Not many things really get me nostalgic, but the old AOL interface really hit me like a truck. I know it was anarchic by today's standards, but I have fond memories of having a bunch of windows of sites I browsed opened and the same time and splitting my focus between them all lol
@theenzoferrari458 4 жыл бұрын
I think you meant to use the word archaic.
@leonardomarquez9551 4 жыл бұрын
@@theenzoferrari458 Yeah, I know the internet was/is a lawless place, but at least the interface has some semblance of order...
@Tb0n3 4 жыл бұрын
@@theenzoferrari458 Personally I think they both fit. Script kiddies roamed the chatrooms and there was little to no moderation many places. The internet is too controlled by algorithms and Puritans these days as well as being tuned to the lowest common denominator.
@Dj.D25 4 жыл бұрын
I still like the old AOL interface. It had some personality, which you don't really see on today's browsers.
@myheartisinjapan3184 4 жыл бұрын
Does anyone remember WebTV...where when it was dialing in and connecting, you saw a visual of little car riding on a road while it was connecting, and that bland music lol.
@Funnyvid16 Жыл бұрын
AOL was the start of my internet life. From my early teens using it to escape my home life with websites, to high school where I’d hop onto AIM before it was separated to chat with friends. AOL was the internet for me till it split into AIM and we all moved to MSN messaged.
@Ccortanaa Жыл бұрын
AOL was my first steps into the internet. It was 1995, and it really was a magical time learning the ropes of the internet. It was so new, so magical, and AOL was the platform that let me find chat rooms where i would meet hundreds of people online, which eventually led to getting to "know them" IRL. It truly was a time i will never forget.
@justinsvasectomyexcellenta3337 4 жыл бұрын
Met my wife on AOL, in a "Yo Momma Jokes" chatroom. She couldn't resist my, Yo momma so stupid, that she asked for help to finish completing a tiger puzzle. I said that's a box of Frosted Flakes. Been married 15 years and counting.
@Seven_Leaf 4 жыл бұрын
Yo momma so bald that when she takes a shower she gets brainwashed.
@thisisJim85 4 жыл бұрын
Yo mamma must be proud. I know, it's lame, but probably true.
@searsok6889 4 жыл бұрын
Damn
@KK1UNIQUE 3 жыл бұрын
One of my favorite chatrooms 🙌🏾
@frogbutts3628 3 жыл бұрын
This is the most wholesome story I've read on the internet recently.
@christiangonzales7429 3 жыл бұрын
AOL Time Warner was one of the most disastrous mergers to ever happen. Hard to believe AOL still exists to this day.
@jc.1191 3 жыл бұрын
They have a steady stream of revenue from people who autopaid on their credit card. Some have forgot to cancel, others think you need it to access the internet out of ignorance.
@DennisTamayo 2 жыл бұрын
AT&T's takeover of Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery) back in 2018 gets even worse.
@pcortes1987 2 жыл бұрын
Due to that merger we lost WCW
@christiangonzales7429 2 жыл бұрын
@@DennisTamayo AT&T buying Time Warner was incredibly disastrous, but the merger with Discovery seems to be helping them recover. David Zaslav knows where the company was crumbling and is busy turning things around.
@brooks5895 Жыл бұрын
AOL is one the email services people still use today
@HughJassle Жыл бұрын
Yes, I was a HUGE AOL fan. What I most remember? The noise when you started to dial in, to this day I occasionally just hear it in my head along with “you’ve got mail” lol. I can’t tell you if you’re video is spot on because i know nothing of the financial aspects of all this BUT it sounds solid. 👍🏻
@thomasgarrison3949 11 ай бұрын
I was an AOL customer back in the 1990's, I remember the sound waiting to get connected by way of a 56k dial-up modem. AOL messed up with Time Warner, they could have been where Google is today.
@tristans48 4 жыл бұрын
"You got mail!" "Goodbye" - AOL
@JustinMacri007 3 жыл бұрын
Good times
@zpushy633sora8 3 жыл бұрын
I totally remember that so well and by Heart. I was just a Little Toddler when I Discovered all of that.
@kveeder3224 4 жыл бұрын
"...For many people watching this, the first time you ever went on the internet was through AOL." I'm a little late for that train.
@Raskolnikov70 4 жыл бұрын
*laughs in 2600 baud modem*
@wulfherecyning1282 4 жыл бұрын
@@Raskolnikov70 *beep boop bi duu sckrrrrrrrrr bi duu bi duuu shhhhhrrrrr*
@null_subject 4 жыл бұрын
Also, some people were smart enough to use superior alternatives, even at the time.
@jamesjjames 4 жыл бұрын
Comcast, masquerading as Earthlink, here (2000).
@TheDeathmail 4 жыл бұрын
many, not all...
@turbofanlover 11 ай бұрын
The noise when I connected over my phone. I will never forget that. It was awesome...back in the day. :)
@horrido666 9 ай бұрын
Before people knew what an internet service provider was, AOL offered their own little environment that was somewhat similar to it. When the internet got big, ISPs offered access to the REAL world, and made AOL unnecessary. With economical ISP available, people who wanted to stay with AOL they would have to pay their ISP, and AOL (because AOL alone was limited to their own infrastructure - or so people came to believe). No one wants to pay for both. That's why AOL died. BTW, at the beginning of the internet, many ISPs charged by the hour.
@Trd2020 4 жыл бұрын
Chat room’s used to be lit. AOL was awesome when I would log in and had to put a blanket over the pc tower so my mom wouldn’t wake up and tell me to go to sleep at 3am
@BleedForTheWorld 4 жыл бұрын
Everyone knew each other in the local regional chat. It was like a clique. The random, more friendly channels were the better ones. a/s/l? You had a lot of people getting to know each other through the internet, too.
@watershed44 4 жыл бұрын
@North Star Ken Yes, I made a LOT of friends on AOL!
@pinkfreud62 4 жыл бұрын
I liked playing the annoying sound wavs, lol. Especially the welcome wav coz it played so long & everyone had to hear it.
@cowboy87smith3 4 жыл бұрын
I remember going online for the first time in AOL at my mother's house on dial up over our landline phone. I also remember always receiving the AOL disk in my mailbox about once a week until it was over taken by cheaper broadband internet in the 2000's.
@2kextra59 Жыл бұрын
I love this channel I watch everyday driving to work!!!!
@MrRandom26 4 жыл бұрын
AIM was a fundamental part of my childhood.
@ChubbyTeletubby 4 жыл бұрын
Welcome! You've got mail! Goodbye!
@hostiletoxictomdowneyburne6469 4 жыл бұрын
Texting before we all had cell phones
@angelswin5108 4 жыл бұрын
Of course used AOL like everyone else . Problem was it was known as 90's dial up internet and never advanced with the times
@TheAdnanmajor 4 жыл бұрын
I would have AIM and MSN Messenger on at the same time.. 😉
@0mnicide 3 жыл бұрын
Remember those buddy icons?
@dukeseb 3 жыл бұрын
I hated when they went to CDs…. Before that it came on floppies…. They were a great source of free storage after you taped the read only hole
@timothymitchell8776 3 жыл бұрын
I thought I was the only one doing that
@TheShadow0515 3 жыл бұрын
I still have a few kicking around. Worked like a dream
@Mizzdr111 3 жыл бұрын
First Aol, 286 using DOS disk... hdd's werent even a thing.
@456puff Жыл бұрын
I never used floppies. What's the "read only" hole? I'm guessing something that was suppose to stop you from using for other purposes.
@dukeseb Жыл бұрын
@@456puff it was a standard thing they put on cassette tapes, vhs tapes and floppies to name a few. They usually had a tab that covered the hole so u could break it off if you wanted to make something read only…. But on official software from any company they didn’t include the tab….
@joseCalderon1976 Жыл бұрын
"Welcome, you have mail". Yup I remember! Thanks for the video.
@mattseman5682 Жыл бұрын
My Dad still, to this day, uses an AOL email, and refuses to use anything else.
@dmandman9 Жыл бұрын
Me too. Although I have another email that I use as a recovery email or other miscellaneous uses, AOL is still my main email. I saw no need to change. Email is email.
@CollectorFanatic101 4 жыл бұрын
I used these when I was a kid. Then call them to cancel and theyd end up giving me 90 days free to change my mind. Rinse and repeat. Didnt pay for internet for almost 2 yrs
@Trd2020 4 жыл бұрын
Lol I remember that
@ashleyshim2078 4 жыл бұрын
Lmaoo
@tktru 4 жыл бұрын
Wait....how old were you at the time?
@justanaveragegrizzlybear1503 4 жыл бұрын
Did they ever realize what you were doing?
@CollectorFanatic101 4 жыл бұрын
@@tktru 17. This was early 2000s
@kaysha 4 жыл бұрын
AIM was everything back then
@rs_shadow8929 3 жыл бұрын
Tru
@kaysha 3 жыл бұрын
@Trantor The Troll 😂😂😂😂
@jtrizzle2000 3 жыл бұрын
@Trantor The Troll Tell me about it. I met so many friends on ICQ. I even had a long-distance girlfriend, and me and all my ICQ friends would get on Furcadia and make cool maps (aka Dreams) and roleplay as furries before it was cringe. Ah, those were the days.
@ryanyoung7433 3 жыл бұрын
AIM made me who I am today and the wild success of my high schools years and my 20s.
@Iconhulk 3 жыл бұрын
Icq
@Jen-lm1oi Жыл бұрын
Omg the hours I spent in the chat rooms. I most remember the sound of it connecting...or trying to connect. You would hold your breath and cross your fingers hoping it would connect. lol
@nebula0024 9 ай бұрын
It's such a shame about AOL. They could have easily been an absolute giant to this day, but they allowed themselves to become the Blockbuster of internet providers: irrelevant and outdated.
@FatalPitty 3 жыл бұрын
AOL chatrooms was lightspeeds ahead any social media outlet
@shinigami146 3 жыл бұрын
I preferred IRC at the time.
@Parappadarappa2 2 жыл бұрын
Fr people could spill the tea way faster by just going on aol then any person on social media could AOL chat was chaos 😂
@technomage6736 2 жыл бұрын
😄 Yeah right, surely that's sarcasm. Nothing but a/s/l and random gibberish.
@FatalPitty 2 жыл бұрын
@@technomage6736 Not at all. Your freedom of speech wasn't infringed on
@____________838 2 жыл бұрын
It’s humorous that most of the texting slang we use nowadays seems to have originated in aol chat or contemporaries.
@yashernan05 4 жыл бұрын
Omg that “Good-bye” scared me lmao
@ladysilverwynde 2 жыл бұрын
AIM is how my husband and I communicated--when we weren't on the phone--during the first several months of our relationship. He lived in Wisconsin, I lived in North Carolina so AOL helped us to stay in touch.
@RellyOhBoy 9 ай бұрын
I've had my AOL account since 1998. I used to pay monthly. I started with dialup through a 56k modem until broadband cable modems popped up. You got 1 primary username and 4 subs. Definitely remember AIM and AOL chat ;). Plus the installation CD's. They were all over the place. In NYC the mail carriers stopped putting them in people's mailboxes and just left them all over the floor in the lobby. I also was an Installer for TimeWarner back in the early 2000's when Roadrunner hit the scene. At one point they were pushing Earthlink, AOL and straight RR all at the same time, even though it was the same equipment installation. I actually still use my 25 year old AOL email address as my primary.
@zonefour 4 жыл бұрын
I use to love the AOL chat rooms. That was the first way I ever met someone online. Online dating was super taboo back then. We’re still friends to this day.
@MikeShoe 4 жыл бұрын
zonefour same here
@shotzybrownkiddos9892 4 жыл бұрын
A/S/L ?
@Trd2020 4 жыл бұрын
Shotzy Brown lol
@jamesjjames 4 жыл бұрын
I never used an AOL chat room but AIM was a big thing back then even when you met people on other sites.
@frenchwaffl 4 жыл бұрын
Cool
@theCarbonFreeze 4 жыл бұрын
I was a user, it was my intro to the internet. I most remember the dial up sound, "youve got mail" and having to get off after only an hour or two because my mom needed to make a call. In high school, my friends and I all used AIM. It seemed like we had better conversations there than thru Facebook and all that came after
@kiaandkimtakenewyork4249 4 жыл бұрын
this is so true!
@jamcalx 4 жыл бұрын
I've have this screen name for my childhood during those days.
@mgarcia121752 4 жыл бұрын
I still have my old screen name since I was 19. Time flies...and yes, chatrooms were more lively back then. Now it is just simple emojis and abbreviated conversations.
@bjornjoseph Жыл бұрын
Bro those 90s chat rooms was fire
@stellayanda5987 Жыл бұрын
the beginning of the video made me realize how young i can be comparatively… my first experiences with the internet were around 2007, a home PC and school computer labs, past the time of AOL already
@gayestgaymer 4 жыл бұрын
“Goodbye” almost made me cry. Nostalgia is so weird. I do not usually comment but wanted to say thanks for making these videos please keep doing them I love them ❤️💕 thanks for posting new content during this pandemic so I can distract myself from the negative energy. You are awesome!
@theBSisreal 3 жыл бұрын
I thought they dropped the ball when they didn’t embrace high speed Internet.
@joecarlo3848 3 жыл бұрын
And that was the beginning of their demise. I worked at AO Hell from 1999 to 2007 and had they embraced and become a leader in high speed rather than trying to latch onto other providers as an add-on, they'd still be a force today.
@theBSisreal 3 жыл бұрын
@@joecarlo3848 Thanks for confirming. I thought they should have embraced high speed internet and gaming. The Time Warner deal didn't make sense to me.
@iammojo75 3 жыл бұрын
@@theBSisreal I was there from 95 to 99, trust me, the hesitation to go to broadband was definitely the reason. The merger was just the icing on the exploding cake.
@theBSisreal 3 жыл бұрын
@@iammojo75 What was their reason for not going with broadband?
@iammojo75 3 жыл бұрын
@@theBSisreal absolute conviction that dial up would not ever go away entirely
@FG-bn3qq Жыл бұрын
I grew up with AOL. I was 11 when we got the internet at home, we had an Windows 98SE and it had a 56K modem built in, we lived in a rural area that didn't have broadband then. So throughout my Middle School life I spent so much time on AOL and then moved onto AIM when we got broadband later on.
@pedrohaonade531 Жыл бұрын
Bad service was one of the reasons I never go back to use them. I was moving from LA to another place, and I called them to cancel the service but did not sign up for a new service. The thing getting worse from here it was taking me more than 2 hours. The reason was they demanded me to tell them but did not. They said they couldn't close my account without a reason. They didn't accept that I said I could not paid the bill. Furthermore, when I sent back the modem, they did not return my deposit, they do received the package on time but they said they didn't have time to enter the system therefore unable to release deposit.
@zachg9065 4 жыл бұрын
I remember AOL. The dial up sound and you’ve got mail.
@stacystec 3 жыл бұрын
The expansion of the internet was ultimately AOLs downfall. Their early niche was having local dialups all over the country - traveling business people could get their email anywhere (this was prior to the wide availability of internet access). Once the internet became available (and freely accessible in many locations), AOL lost its market edge. Their core services were easily replaced by other websites. It was a business model that ironically relied on a lack of internet access to succeed. The availability of ISPs would spell their end.
@Sobernic1982 3 жыл бұрын
Yup. DSL was the first nail in the coffin that I remember.....
@DubDidit 3 жыл бұрын
Your missing the point. Had aol combined with TWs Road Runner Service, the internet would be different than what it is today, maybe, but they missed out by letting TW hoe them out like that
@alant759 3 жыл бұрын
How so? AOL was just a bunch of chat rooms and very basic content. Even with high speed access there was no reason for consumers to subscribe to AOL when they could get email and more expansive content from the broader internet
@stacystec 3 жыл бұрын
@@alant759 That's pretty much what I stated above. Their core services were easily replaced by other websites
@SaigesChannel 3 жыл бұрын
Truer words have not been spoken. The non-technical people were led to believe that their only access to the internet was by way of services, Gopher, AOL, etc. Once people figured out that these services were nothing more than a bridge, they turned to other services provided by ISP's not reliant on front-end (or GUI) supported technologies.
@ilmanr1263 2 жыл бұрын
Love your videos very informative 👍
@richardcard82 Жыл бұрын
AOL chat brings back so many memories, Mainly having a long distance GF when I was 14. I never even knew what she looked like, for all I know it could have been a man, but I went through heartbreak and good times. Made a couple of friends too which we mailed each other photos back then. This was way before digital cameras, closest thing I ever saw was a camera that included a floppy drive that you could use to put the image on a computer, but it was super expensive. The good ole 90's
@briteidea08 Жыл бұрын
At one point, you could have your pictures developed and emailed to you through AOL. Use to do it all the time lol
@voraciousblackstn 4 жыл бұрын
I remember getting the AOL floppies. Was awesome cause you could erase them and use them as regular floppies (aol be damned, i was on msn)
@Raskolnikov70 4 жыл бұрын
Lol, I remember feeling like such an elite hacker after figuring out how to punch a hole in the disk cover in order to allow you to overwrite them :D
@volvo09 4 жыл бұрын
Yup!
@InfectedChris 4 жыл бұрын
I still have a few in a shoebox back at my mom's place. They will be antiques someday.
@honolulublues5548 4 жыл бұрын
@@InfectedChris they're antiques now!!
@josearellano203 Жыл бұрын
I was born in 1992 and AOL is where I had the internet connection when I had my home computer for the first time in 2005. It wasn't possible to get on the phone while on the Internet. And I want to see another video on what happened to MySpace and MSN as well.
@jmanj3917 Жыл бұрын
0:38 Yup. Those discs, and the screeching cacophony of the dial-up modem as you waited forever to connect...
@Habu12 4 жыл бұрын
Last time I was this early, I was still receiving AOL discs in the mail.
@patw.6567 4 жыл бұрын
oh the amount of those that were in circulation
@timotheus2003 4 жыл бұрын
*Floppies
@Habu12 4 жыл бұрын
@@timotheus2003 I remember those too!
@cmdraftbrn 4 жыл бұрын
nothing like a free coaster in the mail
@desupocalypse 4 жыл бұрын
Ah yes, the free shuriken you used for playing pretend ninja turtles. Good times.
@jasonfischer8946 4 жыл бұрын
Who else got excited when a new version of AOL was released and then you had to wait 2 hours for it to update it, but it was worth it to see the new design?
@swagmuffin9000 10 ай бұрын
I know this is 3 years later, but heck yeah! Even the discs were cool. Truly good times. Funny how standards changed so drastically
@jasonfischer8946 10 ай бұрын
@@swagmuffin9000 Yeah, there was some fun and style to it.
Terry Lee
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