It seems like I completely mis-remember things... IIRC, in addition to being an "online portal" to online content, it was also an ISP. Back in those days, most

It seems like I completely mis-remember things... IIRC, in addition to being an "online portal" to online content, it was also an ISP. Back in those days, most internet access was via a Dial-Up modem. If you wanted to get online, your computer had to make a phone call. Where we were, dialing outside of the region defined by our prefix (the 3 numbers after the area code) was considered a "long distance call" and was like 10 cents per minute or something. Connecting to the internet ran up your phone bill ~ fast! if you did not have a LOCAL ISP. IIRC (which is questionable), AOL had toll free numbers, but they'd charge you for your time online - so your internet bill came from your ISP only and not from ISP + Phone Company. Part of AOL's marketing gimmick "first 1,000 hours free!" or some such amount of time to get you to sign up. This was nearly 30 years ago, and I didn't really understand how it all worked back then, and my parents paid the phone bills (not me!) so my recollection may be full of partial-truths or downright falsehoods. But point being - I think the article really understates AOL's role in being an ISP (especially for rural folks who didn't have local ISPs).