4 ms·
As an avid AOL user, that is the worst version of the internet. I remember keywords and thinking that was the internet. Whatever some large corporation had paid
by Larrikin 2y ago
As an avid AOL user, that is the worst version of the internet. I remember keywords and thinking that was the internet. Whatever some large corporation had paid AOL so they could build a shitty little Visual Basic type app that controlled everything you looked at. There were no ads because the entire experience besides the chat rooms and IM was an ad. It was a lot of people's first email accounts but spam blocking was so bad back then I count that as advertising.
I remember being blown away by discovering people would randomly make private chats and trying to guess at what the chat name would be for things I was interested in as a kid. Then I remember having my mind blown that AOL had a built in browser where someone had built a website, not a keyword, that actually had my niche interest that no one in real life did. Then I discovered you could download a much better version of that experience called a browser.
Your idea is just Facebook where you can't link out and is fully corporate controlled. Which I guess is actually Twitter.
I think you long for the Internet where people had hobbies and interest because they enjoyed them, not because they thought they could make money by talking about them.
- silisili 2y ago> I remember keywords and thinking that was the internet Is it really that different from having the .com of a word today? > I think you long for the Internet where people had hobbies and interest because they enjoyed them, not because they thought they could make money by talking about them. I struggle to see how you got to that conclusion, but it's an absolutely true statement nonetheless so I cannot complain.