[htag]

Generally the social platforms can offer one or more of these three things better than AOL ever did.

1. Recommendation engines, and other clever ways to drive up engagements.

2. Marketing. AOL's marketing was generally ahead of other tech companies at the time. Modern platforms have marketing on par with any other consumer brand. They are specifically great at FOMO, user acquisition, and feeling like a basic utility for modern life.

3. Network effect. Meta reports almost 3B monthly active users. What did AOL max out at? 20M?

[doodlesdev]

Arguably all of the things you pointed out are actually disadvantages, it's a matter of perspective really.