[ih] AOL in perspective

Tue Aug 19 20:31:23 PDT 2025

> makes me sceptical that AOL just wanted to be another ISP.

I don't think they ever did want that. They wanted to be a 'portal', as did
Yahoo, MSN, and others.

In my own experience one company that fell off the boat was Netcom.
Netcruiser was a great product.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/16/science/personal-computers-using-the-internet-the-netcom-way.html

Joly

On Tue, Aug 19, 2025 at 10:18 PM Andrew Sullivan via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> This is mighty interesting, but since this is a history list I just want
> to note that it does not completely jibe with my own recollections of
> having to deal with AOL.
>
> In particular, when starting a new gTLD (INFO) in 2001, I observed that
> AOL was not really connected to the Internet in the usual sense: it would
> cache some responses from TLD DNS servers for longer than the TTL on the NS
> RRSET record, which meant that the INFO plan of making a promise that DNS
> changes would show up within 24 hours was hard to keep (because of AOL's
> size).
>
> It is entirely possible that they wanted to build a connection to the
> Internet or be an Internet-first company, but the tendency for AOL to be a
> gateway system with the Internet "over there" makes me sceptical that AOL
> just wanted to be another ISP.
>
> Best regards,
>
> A
>
> On Tue, Aug 19, 2025 at 09:44:11PM -0500, Vint Cerf via Internet-history
> wrote:
> >I asked Steve Case about AOL's ultimately adoption of Internet as a
> >transport medium. Here is his answer (sharing with permission):
> >
> >Steve Case
> >7:15 PM (2 hours ago)
> >to me
> >
> >Hi Vint.  When we launched in 1985 we of course had to build everything
> >ourselves, as the Internet was still limited to non commercial use.  And
> >the only way to access online serv ices of that era (The Source,
> >CompuServe, etc) was via the x.25 dialup networks provided by Sprint,
> >Tymnet, etc   We got started with limited bandwidth (300 baud!) and
> limited
> >CPU capability (Commodore 64!) and that forced some design decisions -
> >including loading graphics onto floppy discs so we didn’t have to transmit
> >much data, but could have a compelling graphics interface (unlike the
> other
> >offerings which were all text only).  We did the best we could with this
> >“doing our own thing” strategy while we waited for the day that we could
> >add Internet features (email etc) to our offerings and leverage the
> >Internet data capabilities to provide a TCP/IP alternative to X.25 (which
> >we became convinced was more scalable with faster speeds and lower costs).
> >We also worked for several years to get Congress to commercialize the
> >Internet, ultimately leading to the Telecom Act.  We were as I recall the
> >first “online service” to add WAIS, Gopher, etc to our service, when it
> was
> >allowed, and also were early and fairly aggressive investors in building
> >out TCP-IP networks (including buying ANS from IBM so we could build more
> >network capacity more quickly and be less reliant on providers such as
> >Sprint, who were trying to milk their legacy x.25 networks and were
> >therefore slow to invest in TCP/IP).   That enabled us to then be able to
> >move from hourly pricing to flat rate unlimited pricing which – no
> surprise
> >– propelled our growth. And we then started making various AOL features
> >(such as instant messaging/texting) as Internet features that didn’t
> >require AOL membership (including AOL Instant Messenger – AIM).  And then
> >we started buying Internet companies including Netscape and many others (
> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL).  So the
> simple
> >answer to your question is when we started in 1985 we had to do everything
> >ourselves as it was illegal for us to connect to the Internet, but over
> the
> >next decade we were all in – in many ways – to embrace the Internet – and
> >ultimately AOL’s dramatic growth in the late 1990s was because it was the
> >easiest, cheapest, fastest way for consumers to be on the Internet, and we
> >offered a range of other services that were exclusive to AOL – so we were
> >able to successfully position AOL as “the Internet and a whole lot more”
> >and leverage to ease of use with branding focused on “it’s s easy to use,
> >no wonder it’s #1”.   At the time I remember that some (including public
> >market investors) viewed the Internet as a threat to AOL, but I believed
> it
> >was an opportunity, and that’s why we went from being a small company to a
> >big company fairly quickly (market cap went from $70m when we went public
> >in 1992 to $160b eght years later when we merged with Time Warner in
> 2000).
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
> >Vint Cerf
> >Google, LLC
> >1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
> >Reston, VA 20190
> >+1 (571) 213 1346
> >
> >
> >until further notice
> >--
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> >Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
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> --
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs at crankycanuck.ca
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Joly MacFie  +12185659365
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