Remember When Dial-Up Ruled and AOL Was the Internet?

When you think about today’s internet, it’s full of buzzwords like NFT, AI, SEO, IoT, Machine Learning, Blockchain, and the list goes on and on. It’s a far cry from the early days of the internet when the most significant issue was making sure you could free up your phone line. 

Everything from the early days of Amazon, Yahoo,  AOL, Compuserve, and even AltaVista reminds us of a time when the internet felt much more joyful. Today, you’re hit with ads every which way, and you can hardly visit a website without being told about another sale from Wayfair or Verizon. 

Dial-Up Internet

As I write this today, we’re unquestionably spoiled by an internet that can provide us with a near-instant, real-time connection. Browser speed is measured in seconds or even milliseconds. 

This is a far cry from the early days of the internet when dial-up was the predominant way to get online. When modems offered a maximum speed of 56,000 bits per second, downloading a single photo could take minutes (or hours!) instead of the seconds it takes today. 

What’s even crazier is how expensive it was to use a dial-up connection in the late 1990s. Long before you could buy a single internet package from Xfinity, dial-up was charged on a consumption basis, so the longer you were online, the more your phone bill would rise. Oh boy, my parents used to get MAD when I would spend hours on AOL at a time. 

The Early Popularity of AOL

Wow, what a time it was during the heyday of the 1990s when AOL ruled the online world. There is little question that the company’s popularity stemmed from making it super easy to get online. AOL could and should likely be credited with making the internet accessible to millions. 

What’s most crazy is that in 1996, it was not uncommon for Americans to spend less than 30 minutes a month—yes, a MONTH—surfing the Web. However, AOL was a dominant force for those who did get online, thanks to its millions of subscribers, and it helped introduce us to a variety of new staple features of the World Wide Web.

Instant Messenger

Before text messaging, iMessage, BBM, and WhatsApp took over the messaging world, there was AOL Instant Messenger. Someone might even say that AIM was the original social network. This was how you chatted with friends and people you just met online.

Who doesn’t remember choosing a screen name that we would be embarrassed to use today? Better yet, your message was a signature statement about your personality and what kind of laughter you could deliver to your friends. 

You’ve Got Mail

For millions of people, their very first experience with email was handled through AOL. The infamous “You’ve Got Mail” sound has become one of the world’s most popular taglines and memes. It’s not impossible to say that the rise of email as a popular way to communicate, and in some cases a primary mode of communication, has AOL to thank. 

Free Internet

In what is arguably the greatest case study of junk mail in history, the AOL CD promises hundreds of hours of free internet. It’s believed AOL shipped more than one billion CDs, offering a free trial of its software. AOL CDs were everywhere, including cereal boxes, attached to the back pages of magazines, on Superbowl seats, meal trays during flights, and even NASCAR races had a deal with AOL. 

There is no question that even when dial-up felt like it took forever to do just about anything online, the promise of being online for free was one of the world’s great coups. Thank you, Steve Case. Well, at least until 2006, when shipping these CDs stopped amidst a flurry of backlash that AOL discs were becoming a garbage issue. 

AOL Chat Rooms

Arguably, the biggest reason many people spent hours on America Online was its chat rooms. Email could be skimmed, and instant messaging conversations could be over in a few minutes, but not the chat room. With AOL providing its user base near unlimited access to various chat rooms, spending hours talking to friends or asking “A/S/L” became the “it” thing to do.

After the world of Bulletin Board Services, the chat room across American Online became the predominant way to connect with like-minded people. For just $19.95 a month starting in 1996, you could spend as much time in a chat room as you wanted, and it helped grow AOL’s user base to 17 million by 1999.

Whether you wanted to discuss punk rock and movies, find a connection, or joke around with your friends, the days of the AOL chat room remind us of an internet age that felt…pure. Instead of pervasive ads and questionable chat apps popping up in app stores, AOL felt trustworthy, at least for a time.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Justin Sullivan / Getty Images.