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It's important to remember that AOL could have been they internet if the succeeded. They offered one view of the world: where the internet would be like a cabl

It's important to remember that AOL could have been they internet if the succeeded. They offered one view of the world: where the internet would be like a cable package and AOL would be the cable provider of this new world who captures a huge part of the market with its first mover advantage. The idea of a truly open internet where anyone could view anything from anyone else as long as they paid for a connection was in many ways a much crazier. It seems inevitable in hindsight given how things have played out but with some slightly changed starting variables or decisions made along the way we could have an internet but no web like we do now.

trollied 3y ago
It worked out for China....
hulitu 3y ago
> It's important to remember that AOL could have been they internet if the succeeded. Well, we now have 4 AOLs: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  Why is Apple included in that list? What service do they have that pretends to be "the Internet"?
  - rhplus 3y ago
    iOS App Store. Plenty of iPhone users never knowingly open a browser or search engine. The internet is apps to them. Other wall-garden networks offered by Apple include: AirDrop, Find My, iMessage
    - sixstringtheory 3y ago
      This is my grandmother, I just wanted to add some confirmation to balance out the current downvotes. I’m an Apple fanboy and developer but I’m not in denial that Apple loves their sandbox just as much as the next corporation. Throw iCloud drive, email (doubly so now with hidden email forwarding), Apple pay, TV and Music in the mix too.
  - washadjeffmad 3y ago
    Don't focus too much on the word "internet" - it didn't mean to people what it does today. Imagine if AOL had existed in an "always online" world and built an OS instead of an application. In fact, just imagine a computer that booted directly into AOL, where you could download and manage apps but never delete the "AOL" part. Isn't Apple's iOS just an abstraction of the environment AOL sought to build - a portal they controlled in between customers and companies to allow and manage exclusive services, media, and (DRM'd) purchases?
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      No.
      - washadjeffmad 3y ago
        , he gasped breathlessly from atop his Peloton, sweat beading beneath his Gucci Bored Ape sweatband as the horror dawned, all too late. Because once seen, there was no unseeing. "No. No. No!" Could everything he had felt for his iPhone have been a saccharine substitute for what he'd lost along with AOL, his empire built in search of his Rosebud? It had all seemed too familiar, once he stopped to think about it... but how did he miss it, all this time? The differences boiled down to mere organization! "I was a fool, so blinded by the beauty of my garden that I failed to notice I was a prisoner of it. I wonder if my garden is merely one of many in a larger garden, and that garden, one of..." "Ding." His buffalo style chicken Hot Pocket was done. After doomscrolling over his cuisine, he felt better - silly, even - for doubting the uniqueness of his iPhone. It had appeared from vacuum, after all, amidst a techless, empty waste of a world, and brought with it an era where even the past was altered in its wake. An icon of an envelope, not a mailbox, wiggled. "Oh look, I've got mail."
        sixstringtheory 3y ago
        That was just the perfect reply, haha. Seriously, they are definitely doing just what you've described, but even more advanced. Not that I think it's intrinsically wrong. It's much more efficient to have protocols for all the modes of interaction that are discovered, e.g. The collection of raw ideas expressible via internet web pages is like a test bed for the possibilities. They eventually graduate into ossified structures under the control of Apple, like Messages reactions, gifs, replies etc. (Even HTML/FTP/etc and browsers are sandboxes with much more restrictions than arbitrary methods of drawing/sculpture/sound/dance and other types of art.) But with power comes responsibility. I'm not even sure it's possible for a corporation to be accountable to the full extent necessary for such control over so many people's interactions. There're unimaginable quantities personal stuff on their servers and clients.
  - oblio 3y ago
    The AppStore? :-) The AppStore and the PlayStore are slowly choking off the internet.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      What a ridiculous claim. The explosion of apps is over, and the Internet is fine. Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet the way Google, Meta, and Amazon are. Lumping Apple in with them reveals ignorance of their core businesses.
      - oblio 3y ago
        The internet is not fine. If you look around 99% of websites are still pushing their apps, especially the big websites.
        ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        And have they taken down their sites as a result? Yes, I find those publishers and apps annoying. But how big a deal have they become?
        oblio 3y ago
        They're slowly boiling the frog if you look at Facebook, Reddit, etc. Also, part of it is a very long game. Younger generations rarely use websites, they mostly use apps. It's the same thing as Office and Windows being slowly moved away towards a subscription model: done successfully for Office, still trending that way slowly for Windows, where resistance is SUPER fierce. Just because the loss is happening over decades, doesn't mean the web is winning.
        ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        I definitely felt this was happening at some point, but it seemed like it peaked. But, fair enough, maybe I just stopped paying attention. You should be happy that Reddit just trashed all the apps, then. It would never have occurred to me to look for an app to use Reddit; nor did I ever hear discussion about it. It seems that people tend to use the same few key applications now: Instagram/TikTok/whatever-flavor-of-the-year-social-media app, messaging, the YouTube app, a browser. But you're right, in that you do still get hounded to install pointless apps to do a single thing. The other day I needed to download some soccer tickets that were being hosted by TicketMaster. After the TicketMaster-hosted site told me to download them to my wallet but offered no way to do so, the team wanted me to install their own app. Nope. Another thing that pisses me off is when vendors will make it impossible to do something from A COMPUTER. NO, I am not going to install a goddamned app and dick around on a tiny phone screen when I'm running an event and executing transactions with customers standing in line, Square!
euroderf 3y ago
And what if they had acquired Altavista (or vice-versa) when Google was just a gleam in the eye.

trollied 3y ago

It worked out for China....

hulitu 3y ago

> It's important to remember that AOL could have been they internet if the succeeded. Well, we now have 4 AOLs: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook.

giantrobot 3y ago
Why is Apple included in that list? What service do they have that pretends to be "the Internet"?
- rhplus 3y ago
  iOS App Store. Plenty of iPhone users never knowingly open a browser or search engine. The internet is apps to them. Other wall-garden networks offered by Apple include: AirDrop, Find My, iMessage
  - sixstringtheory 3y ago
    This is my grandmother, I just wanted to add some confirmation to balance out the current downvotes. I’m an Apple fanboy and developer but I’m not in denial that Apple loves their sandbox just as much as the next corporation. Throw iCloud drive, email (doubly so now with hidden email forwarding), Apple pay, TV and Music in the mix too.
- washadjeffmad 3y ago
  Don't focus too much on the word "internet" - it didn't mean to people what it does today. Imagine if AOL had existed in an "always online" world and built an OS instead of an application. In fact, just imagine a computer that booted directly into AOL, where you could download and manage apps but never delete the "AOL" part. Isn't Apple's iOS just an abstraction of the environment AOL sought to build - a portal they controlled in between customers and companies to allow and manage exclusive services, media, and (DRM'd) purchases?
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    No.
    - washadjeffmad 3y ago
      , he gasped breathlessly from atop his Peloton, sweat beading beneath his Gucci Bored Ape sweatband as the horror dawned, all too late. Because once seen, there was no unseeing. "No. No. No!" Could everything he had felt for his iPhone have been a saccharine substitute for what he'd lost along with AOL, his empire built in search of his Rosebud? It had all seemed too familiar, once he stopped to think about it... but how did he miss it, all this time? The differences boiled down to mere organization! "I was a fool, so blinded by the beauty of my garden that I failed to notice I was a prisoner of it. I wonder if my garden is merely one of many in a larger garden, and that garden, one of..." "Ding." His buffalo style chicken Hot Pocket was done. After doomscrolling over his cuisine, he felt better - silly, even - for doubting the uniqueness of his iPhone. It had appeared from vacuum, after all, amidst a techless, empty waste of a world, and brought with it an era where even the past was altered in its wake. An icon of an envelope, not a mailbox, wiggled. "Oh look, I've got mail."
      - sixstringtheory 3y ago
        That was just the perfect reply, haha. Seriously, they are definitely doing just what you've described, but even more advanced. Not that I think it's intrinsically wrong. It's much more efficient to have protocols for all the modes of interaction that are discovered, e.g. The collection of raw ideas expressible via internet web pages is like a test bed for the possibilities. They eventually graduate into ossified structures under the control of Apple, like Messages reactions, gifs, replies etc. (Even HTML/FTP/etc and browsers are sandboxes with much more restrictions than arbitrary methods of drawing/sculpture/sound/dance and other types of art.) But with power comes responsibility. I'm not even sure it's possible for a corporation to be accountable to the full extent necessary for such control over so many people's interactions. There're unimaginable quantities personal stuff on their servers and clients.
- oblio 3y ago
  The AppStore? :-) The AppStore and the PlayStore are slowly choking off the internet.
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    What a ridiculous claim. The explosion of apps is over, and the Internet is fine. Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet the way Google, Meta, and Amazon are. Lumping Apple in with them reveals ignorance of their core businesses.
    - oblio 3y ago
      The internet is not fine. If you look around 99% of websites are still pushing their apps, especially the big websites.
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        And have they taken down their sites as a result? Yes, I find those publishers and apps annoying. But how big a deal have they become?
        oblio 3y ago
        They're slowly boiling the frog if you look at Facebook, Reddit, etc. Also, part of it is a very long game. Younger generations rarely use websites, they mostly use apps. It's the same thing as Office and Windows being slowly moved away towards a subscription model: done successfully for Office, still trending that way slowly for Windows, where resistance is SUPER fierce. Just because the loss is happening over decades, doesn't mean the web is winning.
        ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        I definitely felt this was happening at some point, but it seemed like it peaked. But, fair enough, maybe I just stopped paying attention. You should be happy that Reddit just trashed all the apps, then. It would never have occurred to me to look for an app to use Reddit; nor did I ever hear discussion about it. It seems that people tend to use the same few key applications now: Instagram/TikTok/whatever-flavor-of-the-year-social-media app, messaging, the YouTube app, a browser. But you're right, in that you do still get hounded to install pointless apps to do a single thing. The other day I needed to download some soccer tickets that were being hosted by TicketMaster. After the TicketMaster-hosted site told me to download them to my wallet but offered no way to do so, the team wanted me to install their own app. Nope. Another thing that pisses me off is when vendors will make it impossible to do something from A COMPUTER. NO, I am not going to install a goddamned app and dick around on a tiny phone screen when I'm running an event and executing transactions with customers standing in line, Square!

euroderf 3y ago

And what if they had acquired Altavista (or vice-versa) when Google was just a gleam in the eye.