[dewitt]

I don't know why the author's tone is so mean and snarky. Yes, the web won (inevitable and thank goodness), but it's not like many 19-year-old web pages are still around and serving working links either.

And for all its fundamental closed-ecosystem walled-garden flaws, AOL brought the first taste of the Internet to millions. We should celebrate the accomplishments and learn from the failings, not dance on the graves of the vanquished.

[zaroth]

I didn't read it as 'mean and snarky'. Author sounds genuinely in awe and the quantity of material on there. It's an archiver's dream I imagine.

[jacquesm]

> it's not like many 19-year-old web pages are still around and serving working links either.

Define many.

  mysql geocities
  Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
  Your MySQL connection id is 93532573
  Server version: 5.0.45-log Source distribution
  
  Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

  mysql> select count(*) from master;
  +----------+
  | count(*) |
  +----------+
  | 44366377 | 
  +----------+  
  1 row in set (0.01 sec)

  mysql>

If 44 odd million qualifies as many then there are many such pages, and there are many more besides the ones that weren't caught here and on the archive. The old web is very much around, it is just tiny compared to the new web which is one of the reasons people think it has disappeared.

Yes, old pages do die permanently, but achive.org is doing an absolutely outstanding job at capturing it. The bigger cause of information mortality is not neglect but outright murder, and murder on 'the open web' is a lot harder than murder in a walled garden.

AOL is a special case, and facebook is trying very very hard to be the new AOL. Don't underestimate the risks of not learning from the past, the author is in my opinion not so much dancing on the grave of AOL as they are warning us about our possible future.

[true_religion]

I reread it, and there isn't so much snarkiness against AOL itself as much as the 90s culture AOL brings.

To someone who didn't experience it first hand, a lot of 90s trends seem utterly ridiculous, and unlike the silly trends of the 60s/70s... 90s trends are well preserved and available for everyone to see and poke fun at.

[paulddraper]

Exactly. AOL was the face of the Internet (ISP, chat, email, web) for years. In relative terms, AOL was arguably the most successful Internet company of all time. And that didn't happen by accident; there are good lessons to be learned.

The same goes for Yahoo! when someone writes a blog post about them in eight years.

[ddingus]

Agreed. There is a lot of history here, and it's still working! I call "amazing" on all of that. Wonder if there is still some revenue, or contracts keeping it alive, or just nobody cares, or too much trouble to kill it off...

Another AOL legacy is retention. You can't really say no without them just leaving AOL on the table. A coworker years ago used to get on for free just stringing them on...

He used to laugh about it, until that tactic worked! He ended up paying them for a while when he ran into hard times. Never without his AOL.

That experience turned him into a strange sort of fan. Disliked AOL, but loyal just the same.

[Diederich]

Funny you mention that. My home page has been up for going on 21 years now. (:

It used to look a lot better than it does now though.