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AOL was a mix of premium subscriber features and free features. Its main social component, AIM, was free for anyone to use. Basically they were unable to monet
by com2kid 4y ago
AOL was a mix of premium subscriber features and free features.
Its main social component, AIM, was free for anyone to use. Basically they were unable to monetize the primary social component of their network!
Except on mobile, where on feature phones AIM was a paid add on.
In some alternate timeline AIM could have become the WeChat of the west, AOL had all the needed features, but by the time technology was ready for WeChat like apps, AOL was basically gone.
They should have become WhatsApp though. Missed opportunity there.
People forget how great AOL was in the 90s, it was way more powerful than the web at the time. Great forum software, good chat interfaces, and tons of original content was being generated for it.
- antifa 4y agoAIM is the only part of AOL that I experienced, and AFAIK was the best of the GUI instant messengers in that era. Sadly even today, it's either IRC or something written in electron, not much competition otherwise.
- antifa 4y agoSadly, I must offer a correction, my positive memories of AIM are because for later usage I was actually using alternative clients like DeadAIM and pidgin.